


The Social Misfit

by LunaLupin1999



Category: Original Work
Genre: Academics, Autism Spectrum, F/M, Family Fluff, Female Jewish Character, Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays, Professors, Triplets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaLupin1999/pseuds/LunaLupin1999
Summary: The Cohens seem to have the perfect life.Then they discover that their daughter has autism, and the everyday things such as starting school cause a hundred problems.
Relationships: Joseph Cohen/Persephone Cohen





	1. The Two Doctors

Persephone and Joseph Cohen had a perfect life, or so it seemed. 

They had lecturing jobs at the university that they loved, a wonderful home with a nice big garden, and they loved each other more than life itself. 

But of course, nobody’s life is perfect, and the Cohens were missing something very important in their family. The house was full of empty rooms, and the silence that comes from not having any children in the house.

Persephone was lying awake staring up at the ceiling. It was early December and there was a chill in the air, she didn’t want to have to get out of bed until she had to, but it was already seven o’clock.

Joseph was lying there next to her fast asleep, snoring lightly. He had never snored too loudly that it kept Persephone awake, but it was comforting hearing him. It reminded her that all was well, and she was safe.

Her stomach began to churn as she lay in bed.

“Here we go again,” she muttered getting out of bed and rushing to the bathroom. 

She knew what the stomach pains meant; it was her time of the month. It meant that she had yet another month without a baby.

She rushed through to the bathroom, but suddenly she found herself feeling sick. Instead of her monthly period as she had been expecting, she found herself being sick into the toilet.

“Oh God,” she groaned, “I knew that seafood last night looked dodgy.”

“You alright Sephie?” called Joseph from the bedroom.

“Yes I’m fine,” she sighed wiping her face clean and getting herself a glass of water.

Persephone took a small sip from the water and felt better almost instantly and went back through to the bedroom.

“You don’t look, fine darling,” said Joseph worriedly.

“Come on, get back into bed, I can warm you up.”

Persephone smiled over at him and shook her head. Usually, once she was out of bed, she’d have to stay out because she had to get up for work. But today was Sunday, there were no lectures to give or students to teach, they didn’t even need to go to Synagogue. And to be honest, right now bed sounded like the best place in the world.

She climbed back in under the warm duvet, and Joseph put his arms around her and held her close.  
“What’s up, sweetheart?”

“Nothing, I think those prawns last night might have been a bit funny is all.”

“That’s what you get for eating shellfish,” chuckled Joseph.

“I know, I know,” said Persephone shaking her head, “this is my revenge for eating non-kosher food.”

“I think you seem to forget sometimes Joseph, just because you’re Jewish doesn’t mean I am. I therefore can eat whatever I like.”

“And then get food poisoning,” he finished shrugging slightly.

Persephone turned around slightly to face her husband; her eyes cold. Joseph stopped laughing instantly and looked terrified as she reached for a large fluffy pillow.

“You wouldn’t?” he asked cowering slightly in mock terror.

Persephone’s face split into a huge grin as she attacked her husband with the pillow.

“I surrender!” he exclaimed putting his hands in the air.

“Are you sorry?” she laughed the pillow still poised in the air.

Joseph nodded his head frantically covering his head with his hands in case she decided to attack again.

“Why is it that I can never stay angry at you,” she beamed as she put the pillow back down.

“Oh, I don’t know,” shrugged Joseph, “maybe it’s my dashing good looks or my cunning brain. 

“Or maybe it’s just because I came equipped with every single episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus on videotape?”

“A combination of the three?” she suggested.

“Come on we’ve got to get up,” chuckled Joseph.

“Why?” she sighed. She had just got warm and comfortable in bed, and Sunday was the only day she could get a lie-in.

“Well I’ve got rugby training later,” he said pulling on his dressing gown.

“That’s not until this afternoon,” she pointed out.

Every single Sunday afternoon, Joseph had a rugby match. He had played for his university team when he was still a student, but now he coached one of the college teams.

Most of the time he was Dr Cohen, lecturer of Modern History, but a few evenings a week, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons he was Joe the rugby coach. They always had matches on Saturday’s and Sunday’s they had extra practise.

“I would love to come and cheer you all on from the side-lines keeping nice and warm in my coat hat scarf and gloves this afternoon, whilst you all practically freeze to death. But that’s not for six hours.”

“Firstly you wouldn’t get cold if you did a couple of laps of the pitch.”

Persephone gave her husband a look as if to say she would rather die than run around the rugby pitch with twenty odd students. 

She reached for the pillow again, and Joseph decided to let the subject drop.

“And secondly, I thought I could take my favourite girl out to lunch first. A nice pub lunch, a walk down by the river.”

“Maybe we could go and look in the shop windows, all the Christmas decorations are up.”

“You don’t even celebrate Christmas,” said Persephone shaking her head as she got out of bed, the idea slowly growing on her.

“No, but the shop windows look nice, and the lights are pretty.”

“Besides,” he whispered, “just because we don’t celebrate Christmas doesn’t mean somebodies birthday isn’t coming up. We could have a look around. Even your favourite little bookshop?”

That sold it for her, Persephone gave Joseph a quick kiss on the lips before rushing off to go and get dressed. 

It was a cold day, so Persephone got dressed in one of her warmer jumpers. It was holly red and hand-knitted. Her mum had made it for her a few years ago, and the jumper was super soft and even warmer.

She pulled on a pair of jeans with her jumper and then sorted out her hair. It was a lot of people would call mousy brown, but Joseph always said it was the colour of toffee, which coincidentally were his favourite sweets. It was fairly short though and only fell to just above her shoulders.

“You ready darling?” called Joseph from the other room.

“Just coming,” said Persephone as she pulled on a thick velvet headband to match her jumper.

“You look, beautiful darling,” said Joseph kissing her softly, “as always.”

“I don’t,” she laughed, “but thank you for saying it anyway.”

“Do you want to take the car, the bikes or walk?” she asked as they pulled on their hat’s coats, scarfs and boots.

“Well seeing as we’ve got all morning, why don’t we just walk?”

Persephone tied Joseph’s scarf around his neck properly as they headed out of the house.

They lived in a fairly quiet area of Oxford, near enough to the university so they could go in on the bikes, but far away enough so they weren’t constantly affected by student life and parties.

The road they lived on was two rows of identical houses, with a road full of parked cars between the two rows. Some of the houses were student houses, and five or so students lived in them, other houses were owned by small families such as the Cohens.

The houses all looked the same apart from the gardens most of the year. Some of the houses had well-kept front gardens, which grew beautiful flowers. One of the houses even had a small rose garden with a stone bench outside the house. Some of the houses though had several bikes fastened to the front gate, as students at the university, in particular, rode bikes around the city rather than walk or drive.

The Cohen’s garden was somewhere between the two, the garden was well kept. Joseph always mowed it once a week in the Summer. But they didn’t grow anything and two bikes were kept in the front garden one red, one blue. Even though Joseph and Persephone were now lecturers rather than students, there was usually so much traffic in the morning that it was much faster to cycle rather than drive to the college.

There was one other major difference between all of the houses in December though. All the houses on the whole street put up some kind of decoration. Some of them just had a small Christmas tree lit up in the sitting room window, others had lights covering the whole house. One family with small children had an inflatable Santa clause and reindeer, they had even left a hand-painted sign on the garden gate saying ‘Santa, please stop here.”

The house next to the Cohens was lived in by five students, some of which were even on the rugby team. They didn’t have lights or inflatable father Christmases, but they had covered everything they could find from the garden gate to the front door in sparkly gold and silver tinsel.

There was also currently three boys outside the house on the pavement wearing shorts and t-shirts and stretching.  
Two of the boys looked extremely fed up, one of them seemed quite groggy which was hardly surprising as it was half-past eight on a Sunday morning, and the other one was clutching his head as if he had a splitting headache. The third boy was full of energy and was leading the other two in stretches. 

“Morning lads,” chuckled Joseph.

“Morning Dr C, Dr C,” beamed Matt bouncing up and down leading his friends in star jumps. 

“Morning sir,” said one of the boys groggily.

“What’s got you so tired Nick?” asked Persephone

“I was up studying; I’ve got a French exam on Monday.”

“You can have a day off from training if you want Nick,” suggested Joseph.

“He’s as ready as he’ll ever be for that blasted exam,” said Matt putting an arm around Nick, “been studying all week, I’m dragging him to practise this afternoon just to get him away from his books.”

Nick simply smiled nervously and straightened his glasses.

“What I want to know,” asked Henry the last boy, “is why you’ve dragged us out of bed this early, practice isn’t for over five hours.”

“I always go running,” said Matt matter of factly, “you’ve got a hangover to run off, and I promised Nick if he came along for this, and to practise this afternoon, I’d test him all evening if he wants.”

“Right,” said Matt as he finished stretching, “10K here we come.”

“Ten kilometres,” stammered Nick as he ran after Matt.

“Help me,” mouthed Henry as he jogged away reluctantly.

“See you at practise boys!” called Joseph laughing as he and Persephone walked into the city together.

“Where do you want to go first?” asked Joseph as they reached the Highstreet.

“I want to look in all the windows,” she said taking one of his gloved hands in hers.

They walked down the Highstreet of their favourite shops. There was the shop were Joseph bought his videotapes, and another one for his cassette tapes. The tea shop where Persephone used to go for afternoon tea and cakes with her parents.

The best shops were at the end of the road though, as they were on the corner, they were the biggest. One of them was a huge bookshop, Persephone and Joseph could spend hours in that shop between them and never want to leave, especially Persephone who was an English Literature professor.

The other shop was a toyshop. It had the biggest shop window, which was always full of toys, especially at Christmas time.

In the shop window was a huge Techni Lego Ferris wheel that span back and forth. There was also a large advent calendar, the first four days had already been opened. A shop assistant was currently opening the fifth window, which had a picture of a doll that was so beautiful and big, that it was almost real. 

Persephone was looking longingly at a collection of a variety of teddy bears in the front window.

“Next year darling,” said Joseph quietly squeezing her hand gently, “next year we’ll have a baby.”

“I hope so,” whispered Persephone.

“Come on, the bookshops opening.”

Persephone nodded and dragged her attention away from the toy shop.

They went into the bookshop, there were displays for Christmas in there too. Huge stacks of glossy new hardback books which had been brought out in time for Christmas. 

One of the displays had a familiar face smiling up at them from the front cover. 

“Oh, Joe! They’ve got the new Michael Palin!”

“You’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the Palinster haven’t you?” chuckled Joseph looking at the display of Full Circle books.

He started making a mental list of things to get Persephone for her birthday as she rushed around the shop inspecting all the books as excited as a five-year-old.

There were several reasons why they didn’t celebrate Christmas, Joseph and his parents were Jewish, Persephone’s family had been Christian, but Persephone wasn’t a very devout Christian. There was also the fact that Persephone’s birthday was on the twenty-fifth of December.

Persephone looked quickly through all the new books, before heading off to her favourite section of the shop, where they kept the Classics. In a corner of the bookshop, five towering bookshelves reached the ceiling and had everything from Jane Austen to William Shakespeare. 

As usual, at this time of year, they were trying to push A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

“Oh Joe,” she muttered pulling a copy of Pride and Prejudice, “would you look at this?”

“Persephone Cohen, how many copies of The Complete Works of Jane Austen have you bought over the last thirty years?”

“She’s my favourite,” she beamed stroking the soft leather cover somewhat longingly.

Joseph was trying to talk her out of looking too closely as he had something hidden at the back of his wardrobe because he knew his wife’s partiality for Austen.

“Sure, I can’t tempt you into this copy of Ulysses instead?” pulling a random book off the shelf.

“Oh no! Joyce is simply ghastly!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” laughed Joseph who had never read James Joyce.

Once Persephone had spent enough time looking through the books, they went to Joseph’s video shop.

“Why is Michael Palin determined to haunt us today?” asked Joseph shaking his head as he looked at the videotape of Full Circle which had been broadcast earlier that year.

They both loved Michael Palin and his travel shows, and always watched them as they came out. They already had Around the World in Eighty Days and Pole to Pole at home.

“Oh, go then,” chuckled Persephone picking up the tape, “we can watch it after practice tonight.”

“Unless you’d rather wait a week until Hannukah,” she asked smiling at him mischievously.

“You wouldn’t make me wait,” said Joseph, “because you want to watch it too!”

They continued to look through the videos, and the list inside Joseph’s head continued to grow before they eventually bought the Michael Palin video.

“Now then, do you want a pub Sunday lunch, or would you like to pop into Mrs Clarks for tea, sandwiches and cake?”

“Mrs Clarks please,” she beamed always excited to visit her favourite tea shop.

“Good morning Mrs Clark,” called Joseph as they rushed into the shop and slammed the door shut quickly so the cold wouldn’t be let in.

“Joseph,” exclaimed Mrs Clark coming over to hug her favourite customers, “Sephie.”

“I’ve got you your table free as usual,” she beamed ushering them over to their window table where they could watch the world go by.

Up until a year ago, Persephone’s parents had always brought her in here when they visited. But her mum had had a bad cold last January and it had turned into influenza and she hadn’t recovered, and her dad had died from heartbreak a month later. If it hadn’t been for Joseph and his parents, she wouldn’t have pulled through.

“Here you are!” beamed Mrs Clark bringing over a pot of tea and two plates of sandwiches.

“Ham and cucumber for Sephie.”

“Thank you they look wonderful.”

“And Marmite for this dashing young man.”

“I might be dashing but I’m not young,” said Joseph as he tucked in ravenously to his sandwiches.

“If thirties old, then I must be ancient!”

Mrs Clark soon came over with a tower of mini cakes and tiny biscuits. There was even a couple of mince pies.

“I might not celebrate Christmas,” said Joseph as he helped himself to a piece of Christmas cake, “but I can never turn down your marzipan.”

“I take that as a great compliment Dr C,” said Mrs Clark as she went off to serve some other customers.

Once they had finished their tea and cakes, they walked back to the house, and Persephone put on a thermos of tea before they headed out to rugby practise and Joseph went to go and get changed into his rugby kit.

The rugby pitch that they practised on was near the edge of Oxford which meant it wasn’t too far from the house.

About twenty boys were stretching on the pitch waiting for Joseph to arrive. He had been on the rugby team for the Corpus Christi College when he had been a student himself, and a few years ago the coach had left so now Joseph found himself helping out with coaching the team on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Henry seemed to have shaken off his hangover and was ready for a proper training session. Matt was testing Nick on his French vocab as they stretched.

“Afternoon Dr C, Dr C,” chuckled Matt as Persephone got out her thermos of tea.

“Ok lads you know the drill, one lap of the pitch and then we’ll get started on some passing drills.”

“And if anyone complains of being cold,” said Henry as he started running, “can run another lap!”

Persephone watched with elation as Joseph ran back and forth with the students throwing the ball back and forth and helping them with their tackling. He had always had a very hands-on approach to his coaching, and by the time the session was over, he was covered in mud but beaming from ear to ear.

“Do you ever miss it?” asked Persephone as they headed back to the house, Joseph’s muddy boots hanging around his neck by the laces.

“What the rugby?” he asked, “not really, three coaching sessions a week is enough for me.”

“You don’t wish you’d gone professional?”

“No,” shrugged Joseph, “I’d have missed teaching too much.”

“Besides, you’ve seen what professional rugby players look like, they’re right ugly bastards. I’m far too handsome to have ever gone professional.”

“Not to mention the fact that I was never good enough,” he chuckled.

“I’d much rather be married to an average rugby player with an excellent mind who loves me, that a man who’s away all the time and can’t string two words together because he’s had too many concussions.”

“Good,” said Joseph spinning her around her kissing her deeply, “because that’s what you’ve got.”

Persephone laughed as he spun her around, and kissed her in the middle of the street outside the house. Joseph got her face covered in mud, but she just didn’t care.

“Somebodies Christmas has come a bit early,” laughed one of the students who lived across the road from them.

“Hannukah will have come a week early when you hand in an essay on time Lucy,” said Joseph.

“I’ll have that essay in for you tomorrow morning Dr Cohen,” said Lucy rushing back into the house and going to finish the essay that was due the next day.

“Maybe miracles do happen,” smirked Joseph as they headed into the house.

“Right, I’ll go take a bath, and then I’ll warm up some soup whilst you decrud yourself.”

Persephone ran upstairs and took a warm bath to get the chill off her from standing on the rugby pitch.

She then got into a pair of warm pyjamas and a flannel dressing gown and went downstairs to heat up some soup for dinner.

Joseph had been building a large fire in the sitting room and went up to go and take his bath whilst Persephone made the dinner.

Twenty minutes later, they were both sat on the sofa by the fire in their pyjamas and dressing gowns eating bowls of hot tomato soup with bread rolls.

“Right,” beamed Joseph as he finished his dinner and fishing in the shopping bag from earlier.

“Take it away Mickey!” he exclaimed as he loaded the first tape into the video player.

They snuggled up next to each other on the sofa and watched Michael Palin visit all his colourful and exotic countries.

“So, Dr Cohen,” said Persephone as she snuggled into his arms, “what’s on your list for Hannukah?”

“I’ve got eight days’ worth of presents to buy for you.”

“I’ll tell you what Dr Cohen,” said Joseph smiling mischievously, “I’ll tell you what I want if you tell me what you want for your birthday.”

“Why don’t we just surprise each other as usual,” laughed Persephone.

“You know I love you right?”

“Of course I do,” muttered Persephone as she drifted off into a light sleep in his arms.


	2. Happy Holidays

Joseph was stood at the front of a packed lecture theatre of first-year students. The students were eagerly waiting for the end of the lecture, not because they weren’t enjoying the lecture, but as soon as this was over they could all go home.

“And that concludes our series of lectures on how bombing was used during the Second World War.”

“Any questions?”

There were no hands raised.

“Right then straight on to AOB, any other business. Please remember to hand in your essays on How and why the blitzkrieg worked before you go. Your exams will be in the week you get back from Christmas.”

“Your only other homework is for you to all to watch Dam Busters!”

“Yes!” said a particularly enthusiastic student in the front row.

“Nice one sir!” called David who was also on Joseph’s rugby team.

“It’s a jolly good film,” laughed Joseph, “and it covers the Chastise Bombings.”

“The only thing I’ve got left to say is Happy Holidays. See you all in 1999.”

The students all called out festive greetings as they gave in their essays on the way out.

“Merry Christmas Sir.”

“Happy New Year!”

David was waiting at the back of the crowd of students.

“Good Sabbath Sir, and Happy Hannukah.”

“Good Sabbath David,” said Joseph shaking his hand.

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

“No, but my grandparents are, I know when the high days and holidays are.”

“Enjoy the break, and don’t study all the time,” said Joseph as he gathered up all of his essay papers and headed out of the classroom to find his bike.

He secured the papers in his satchel and hopped on his bike to head home. It was already gone five, and the Sabbath started at six o’clock on the dot.

Persephone and Joseph usually celebrated the Sabbath on their own, six o’clock every Friday night to six o’clock on Saturday night. But for the next eight nights, Joseph’s parents were visiting from London and were going to be staying with them. But Joseph and Persephone both taught until five o’clock though they sometimes struggled to be home and ready in time for six o’clock. 

His parent’s car was already parked next to theirs outside the house, and so was Persephone’s bike. He pulled up his bike and parked it in the front garden as usual.

Matt and Henry appeared to be passing a rugby ball from one side of the road to the other. Matt was standing on one pavement, and Henry the other.

“Mind out for the cars boys,” said Joseph not even looking back as he rushed through the door.

“Hello all!” he called.

“Joseph!” called Mr Cohen coming out of the sitting room and patting his son on the back.

“How was work?”

“Great,” chuckled Joseph, “I’ve got hundreds of essays to mark this holiday though.”

“You won’t be marking anything tonight Joe!” called Mrs Cohen.

“Go and get ready for Sabbath,” said Mrs Cohen poking her head out of the kitchen door.

“Do I smell latkes?” asked Joseph taking in the delicious smell of potato pancakes.

“You may and you may not,” said Mrs Cohen with her hands on her hips.

“Does the existence depend on whether I get washed and changed in the next twenty-five minutes?”

Mrs Cohen nodded wordlessly.

Joseph gave her a brief salute before rushing upstairs to go and get changed. Persephone was in the bedroom pulling on a dress, and she had laid out Joseph’s suit and Yamaka on the bed for him.

“Mum’s threatening if I’m not downstairs by six o’clock I’m not getting any dinner.”

“She’s been saying the same thing since you were a little boy,” said Persephone as he did up the zip on her dress.

“And I’ve never been late for a Sabbath dinner once.”

Joseph washed his face and shaved off his five o’clock shadow before getting dressed into his suit and putting on his Yamaka.

“Joseph Zebulon Cohen, if you are not down here within two minutes, your father will have eaten all the latkes and brisket!”

“I’m coming,” said Joseph who couldn’t help himself but laugh as he ran down the stairs.

He took his seat opposite Persephone at the table which was laden with food including a loaf of bread, a brisket, and Joseph’s favourite latkes.

Mr Cohen winked at his son and he sat down with thirty seconds to spare.

Mr Cohen blessed the bread, and Mrs Cohen lit the first candle on the Menorah which she then put in the sitting room window.

“You need feeding up Joseph,” muttered Mrs Cohen as she piled up his plate high with brisket, potato pancakes, and steamed vegetables.

“You’ve been spending too much running around on the rugby pitch, there’s hardly anything on you.”

“The same goes for you Sephie,” said Mr Cohen patting his daughter in law’s hand affectionately, “you’re far too skinny.”

Persephone bit her lip and smirked slightly as she picked at her food.

“You not hungry Sephie?” asked Mrs Cohen.

“Long day,” muttered Persephone before tucking into the dinner.

After dinner, the Cohens all sat in the sitting room and Persephone handed out the presents. She was the only member of the family who wasn’t Jewish, but she still presents.

The presents for the first night were tiny parcels wrapped in tissue paper, one for each of them.

In each parcel was a packet of chocolate coins.

“Hanukkah gelt,” explained Mrs Cohen.

“And the best part about these coins,” beamed Joseph, “if we can eat them!”

“Do we want to watch a film?” asked Mr Cohen.

“It’s still early.”

“No John Cleese,” said Mrs Cohen firmly, “I can’t stand the man!”

“Don’t worry Mum,” chuckled Joseph, “we’ve got a film you might like.”

“Do you now?” asked Mrs Cohen incredulously.

“The Fiddler On The Roof,” said Joseph dramatically showing the video box.

Mrs Cohen’s face lit up, it was her favourite film, and she always loved watching it when it was shown on the television.

Joseph loaded the film into the video player, as Mr Cohen made the fire and then Joseph sat down next to Persephone as the film started.

By the time the film finished, it was gone eleven o’clock, and Mr Cohen blew out the candle.

Mr and Mrs Cohen headed up to the guest bedroom to get some sleep.

Persephone had fallen asleep during the film and Joseph carefully lifted her off the sofa to carry her up to bed.

“Dear lord,” muttered Joseph as he carried her upstairs, “have you put on weight?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” mumbled Persephone drowsily as he tucked her into bed.


	3. Surprise!

The alarm clock went off on the bedside table, and Joseph turned it off quickly instantly awake even though it was only six o’clock. He didn’t want to wake up Persephone who was sleeping so soundly next to him. Sephie always looked so beautiful when she was sleeping soundly.

“What’s going on?” mumbled Persephone as she felt Joseph’s warm body get out from bed next to her.

“Nothing darling,” he whispered kissing her on the forehead, “get back to sleep.”

Joseph tucked Persephone back into bed properly so that she was good and warm before going to go and get up.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper before shaving himself quickly. 

He always shaved in the mornings as Sephie liked him clean shaven. When they had first gotten together seven years ago, she had complained that the bristles from his beard had tickled whenever they kissed. So now he always shaved.

He went down to the kitchen and got started on the breakfast. Other families up and down the country would already be up by now opening Christmas presents. But Christmas day in the Cohen household was very different although it did still involve a lot of traditions.

Joseph wasn’t a terrible cook, but Sephie was just better at it than him. He hummed to himself as he whisked the eggs for the breakfast and got out the bagels to toast them whilst the eggs were cooking.

Most families would have bacon, or sausage with their eggs for breakfast, but Joseph wasn’t allowed pork as it wasn’t kosher. Today was a special occasion though, so he had bought a pack of smoked salmon to have with their eggs this morning.

He even put on a pot of Persephone’s favourite tea which was rose tea and she saved for when she could really enjoy it because she didn’t have to rush off to work.

Joseph carefully carried Sephie’s presents up to their room trying not to wake her, before bringing up the cards, and finally the tray with her breakfast and tea.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Queen of the Underworld, Happy Birthday to you!”

Persephone stretched slightly as she yawned widely. 

“Well if I’m the Queen of the Underworld, you must be Hades.”

“Happy Birthday darling,” chuckled Joseph putting the tray down on the bed.

Persephone gave a deep sniff and closed her eyes in ecstasy.

“Rose infused tea,” she muttered.

“I don’t deserve you, you know,” she chuckled as she ate her breakfast.

“I’ve got the body!” said Joseph showing off his muscles through his dressing gown.

“A first-class brain, and most importantly, I can make the best scrambled eggs.”

“I might just have to marry you some day you know,” said Persephone shaking her head.

“You did,” chuckled Joseph, “nearly four years ago.”

“Now then,” beamed Joseph as she finished off her breakfast, “presents or cards first?”

“Cards first,” she beamed.

Joseph passed her about a dozen or so cards that had arrived over the last few days, from their friends and family. One of the last cards had been hand delivered whilst Joseph had been making the breakfast.

Persephone opened the hand delivered card and found a handmade card. It looked like a Christmas card, but it had a Menorah instead of a Christmas tree, and had a birthday cake instead of a Christmas pudding.

Dear Mrs Dr. C,

Happy Birthday!

Hope you have a great day, and get loads of cool presents, and don’t have to do much work.

One good thing about today is there’s no rugby practise, so you don’t have to freeze on the side of the pitch.

Happy Holidays, Nick, Matt, Henry, Katie and Liz.

P.s Liz drew the card!

P.p.s send our greetings to Mr. Dr.C

“They’re good kids,” nodded Joseph as he put the card with the others.

“Kids?” laughed Persephone, “they’re only ten years younger than us.”

Once she had opened all her cards, there were the presents. 

Mr and Mrs Cohen had given her a box with different types of fancy tea. They had also given her a mug which was three times the size of a usual mug and had her name painted on it.

“You could fit a pot of tea in that flaming mug,” said Joseph raising his eyebrows.

“You’re just jealous,” she smirked as she put the mug away carefully.

Then Joseph picked up a large shopping bag and put it on the bed. There was small ribbon taped onto the bag.

“You know I can’t wrap,” he chortled.

“I love you anyway,” she chuckled kissing him.

There were several video tapes in the bad including Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns, and the whole box set of Black Adder. Joseph and Persephone loved watching television together once they’d both finished their work for the day.

There were also some silly little presents like post it notes and notebooks and keyrings. 

“Thank you darling,” she beamed as she finished going through her presents.

“I’ve still got one more thing for you,” he chuckled fishing under the bed for a pile of books.

“Here you go,” he said passing her the three books.

“Folio copies of Jane Austen,” she breathed stroking the red leather covers her eyes wide in shock.

“But these must have cost you a fortune!”

“They were in the second hand bookshop, fifty pounds.”

“You’re joking,” exclaimed Persephone. These books should have been worth six times that much.

“Happy birthday darling,” he beamed giving her a kiss.

“I’ve got something for you too,” she said smiling slightly mischievously.

“But it’s your birthday not mine,” said Joseph confused.

Persephone riffled in her bedside table drawer and passed him a strange shaped stick.

“What’s this?” asked Joseph confused.

“It’s a pregnancy test,” she told him beaming.

“A what?” he breathed.

“Are you serious! Are you really?”

“Two and a half months since my last cycle, and I’ve been sick every morning for nearly a month.”

Joseph’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t believe his ears. They had been trying for a baby since they had first gotten married nearly four years ago, but now it was actually happening.

Persephone looked at Joseph nervously, he looked like he was five seconds away from fainting. She hadn’t been expecting this reaction, they had waited this long for this news she had thought he would be happy.

“Oh My God,” muttered Joseph after a few minutes.

“And you’ve been carrying things around and not said anything,” he stammered.

“Just yesterday you carried the shopping home, you should have asked me to carry them for you!”

“Are your pillows plumped up properly? Do you want another cup of tea? You haven’t had any craving have you? You’re not feeling sick again are you?”

“I’m fine Joe calm down,” she laughed, “I didn’t tell you earlier in case something went wrong, or I wasn’t pregnant.”

Joseph took a deep breath before holding her close and giving her a huge hug.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m fine, but I’ve got my first scan in the new year. You can come with me for that if you want?”

“I’d love to,” beamed Joseph holding her close.

“Now unless I’m much mistaken, it’s still my birthday, so we’ve got some traditions to do.”

“Of course M’Lady,” said Joseph bowing exaggeratedly.

“I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes,” she laughed.

Joseph went downstairs whilst Persephone got dressed. 

When she got back downstairs, he helped her into her coat and scarf and did up her coat for her.

“Darling stop fussing,” she muttered, “I’m pregnant not ill!”

“Look, it’s taken you long enough to get pregnant,” said Joseph doing up her coat buttons, “so I don’t want to risk anything.”

Most families traditions for Christmas Day included a turkey lunch, opening presents by the tree and pulling crackers. 

Joseph and Persephone had breakfast in bed, followed by a long walk. Then they came back home and watched television and ate as much junk food as they could. 

“Morning Dr C. Dr C.!” called Matt as they went out for their walk. 

Matt had just gotten back from his morning run and was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt despite the temperature.

“Why haven’t you gone home for Christmas?” asked Joseph.

“No it’s more fun here! Besides, I’ve got to keep young Nick company!”

Matt didn’t have a family; he had come to Oxford from a children’s home which he went back to over the summer holidays. 

Nick only had his parents, but his dad worked for an oil company in the tropics and Nick wanted to study for his exams rather than going all the way to Argentina for three weeks. Joseph thought that Matt actually had a bit of a soft spot for Nick which is why Matt had persuaded him to join the rugby team in the first place.

“Happy Birthday Mrs Dr C.!” said Matt.

“What you two up to today?” asked Persephone.

“Well if I can drag Nick away from his books long enough, the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” chuckled Joseph as he and Persephone went off for their walk.

They went for a good long walk down by the rivers, where the boats usually rowed by. There weren’t any boats rowing past today as it wasn’t during term time, but a lot of the time the river was full of teams practising for the boat race.

After their walk, Joseph lit a huge fire in the sitting room whilst Persephone put the pizzas in the oven. Once the pizzas and chips were cooked Joseph put the first tape of Ripping Yarns into the video player and they both settled down for a quiet afternoon off.

“It’s strange isn’t it?” said Joseph as they gorged themselves on cheese pizza, “that this time next year, there’s going to be a little baby joining in with our family traditions for Christmas Day.”

“What you mean ignoring it entirely?” laughed Sephie.

“You bet!”


	4. Three Very Shocked Doctors

“Right!” said Joseph firmly from the front of the lecture room where he had been walking between the desks, “pens down!”

“Can you please hand in your papers, clearly labelled with your name and student number on the way out.”

There was a large amount of scuffling of chairs as the students got up to hand in their exam booklets. There was also a fairly large amount of chattering in relief, Exam week after Christmas holidays was finally over, and the students got a fortnight off whilst the lecturers marked the papers. 

Now all Joseph had to do has to mark several hundred exams for all his students. But that didn’t matter right now. Persephone had managed to get a Friday afternoon appointment at the hospital so they could go after work, Joseph was going to miss the start of the Sabbath but this was more important.

Joseph scooped all the papers into his bag and half ran to Persephone’s lecture room halfway across campus where the last of the students were just leaving. Persephone was at the front of the room talking to a particularly nervous fourth year student.

“I’m just worried I’ve failed,” stammered the girl who looked like she hadn’t slept for days studying.

“You’ll have been fine Frankie,” assured Persephone, “your coursework is more than up to scratch.”

“Why don’t you just go home, have a nice cup of tea and something to eat, and then get some sleep. If there’s any problems with your exam, I’ll ring you. If you need a chat, you know where me and Joseph live.”

“Hmm,” mumbled Frankie packing away her things.

“You’ll have been fine,” said Persephone, “now go and sleep for a fortnight, you like you bloody need it.”

“Same goes for you,” said Frankie laughing slightly.

“Sephie,” said Joseph walking in, “we’ve got to get going.”

Frankie stopped laughing as Joseph came in, and she started staring down at her shoes.

Joseph didn’t know why, but he seemed to scare Frankie somehow. Frankie came around to the house every now and again for help on an assignment and Persephone had always had a bit of a soft spot for her as Frankie had been one of her first ever students. Sometimes Frankie and Sephie would be chatting away about an assignment and then Joseph would walk in and Frankie would clam up and stop talking as if she was terrified of him.

“Just coming darling,” muttered Persephone packing her bag with all the papers to be marked.

“Don’t worry Seph, I’ll get that” said Joseph taking the bag, “but we’ve really got to get going. We’re going to be late!”

“I can carry my own bag Joseph,” she said smirking but not reaching to take the bag back from him.

“Oh,” stammered Frankie, “I’ve held you back and you’ve got an appointment. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright Frankie,” assured Persephone, “it’s just a check up. I’ll take a look at your paper when we get back, and if there’s any problems I’ll ring you.”

“A check up!” Frankie nearly screamed, “you’re not ill are you?”

“No Frankie she’s not ill,” said Joseph trying to keep calm.

“But if we don’t get a move on, we’re going to be very late!”

“I’m coming,” muttered Persephone, “I’m coming.”

“She really is fine,” assured Joseph to Frankie who had been terrified that her favourite lecturer was ill.

Joseph usured Persephone from the building out to the car before she stopped to talk to anyone else and made them even more late.

“How are you feeling darling?” asked Joseph as he started up the car.

“I’m fine Joseph,” she muttered half closing his eyes from being tired after a long week.

“You’ve been working too hard haven’t you,” he said shaking his head as they drove to the hospital.

“If that doctor says you need bed rest today, we’re going to follow those orders even if you have to stay in bed for the next five and a half months!”

“Joseph,” she started.

“Yes I know, I know!” he muttered.

“You want to keep working for as long as you can, don’t want to take any maternity leave and all that. But if it’s for your health I’m sure the dean will understand.”

“Joseph Cohen, how many times do I have to tell you. I am not terminally ill, I’m pregnant! It’s the most natural thing in the world!”

“I know,” shrugged Joseph, “I’m just worried about you. I always worry about you. And you’ve been sick every morning for nearly two months.”

“Joseph,” sighed Persephone taking a deep breath.

“Calm down and concentrate on the road. If there’s anything wrong, the doctors will tell us.”

Joseph nodded frantically and kept on driving. Before long they pulled up outside the hospital, and they left the two bags full of exam papers in the car only bringing Persephone’s handbag into the hospital with them.

They walked hand in hand up to the reception desk.

“Good afternoon,” beamed the nurse behind the reception desk.

“Afternoon,” nodded Persephone, “we’re here for a prenatal check-up.”

“Is it your first?” asked the nurse raising her eyebrows at them.

“Um yes,” said Persephone biting her lip.

“If you hadn’t been first timers,” said the nurse slightly boredly, “you would have known to go straight to the maternity ward for check-ups.”

“Thank you very much,” said Joseph as they headed for the maternity ward.

“Well, she was rude,” muttered Joseph as they walked to the ward.

“Joe, it’s Friday evening, she’s probably just had a long week. She didn’t mean harm.”

When they got to the right ward, the receptionist told them where to go and wait and that they were next.

Joseph tried to steady his breathing as they waited in the waiting room with the other expectant couples.

“How far along are you?” asked a woman with a toddler sitting next to Persephone.

“Three and a half months,” beamed Persephone, “we’re getting our first scan.”

“First parents,” she beamed, “ah I remember that! I’ve got three now. If your husbands panicking this much now, he’ll probably faint when you actually go into labour.”

“I’m not panicking!” Joseph said louder than he had meant to.

“He’s just worried,” chuckled Persephone, “it’s funny, he’s not usually much of a worrier.”

“But at the moment he won’t let you lift a teapot?” asked the woman knowingly.

“Can I give you some advice?” asked the woman looking to Joseph taking Joseph’s hand.

“Don’t worry about everything, it will all turn out all right in the end.”

Joseph smiled slightly dubiously but he was grateful for the woman trying to help.

“Dr Persephone and Dr Joseph Cohen?” asked a doctor coming out into the waiting room.

“Here!” said Joseph getting up.

“If you will come this way please,” nodded the doctor showing the way through to his office.  
“My name is Doctor Singh, I am going to be your doctor for your pregnancy. This is your first check-up correct?”

“Yes,” nodded Persephone, “I’m three and a half months.”

“Excellent,” nodded Doctor Singh, “so, we’re today we’re going to have your first scan. But before that, do you have any questions? Have there been any problems?”

“No problems,” said Persephone shaking her head.

Joseph opened his mouth to speak at this point.

“She’s tired all the time, and she’s had terrible morning sickness for two months!”

“Dr Cohen, I assure you, this is quite normal. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure your child is fine and Mrs Cohen seems to be the picture of health.”

“Are you sure she isn’t supposed to be on bedrest or anything?” asked Joseph.

“Joseph!” said Persephone calmly but firmly.

“Stop panicking, if the doctor says I’m fine, then I’m fine.”

“Shall we take a look at you then?” asked Doctor Singh.

Persephone nodded eagerly, and went to go and get changed for the scan. Joseph meanwhile was pacing back and forth. What if the doctor found out that there was something wrong, there might not even be a baby!

“Joseph!” Persephone called from the other room.

“What is it Seph!” Joseph called running into the room.

Persephone was lying waiting for her ultrasound and she was as white as a sheet. She looked like a big gust of wind would blow her away.

“What’s wrong Sephie?”

“I’m scared,” she mouthed.

“Don’t be,” said Joseph gently taking her hand.

“I’m right here.”

“What if you’re right?” stammered Persephone.

“What if there is something wrong?”

“I’m sure there won’t be darling,” said Joseph actually believing it himself.

“Let’s take a look at you, shall we?” asked Doctor Singh looking at the ultrasound screen.

The Doctor looked at the screen and seemed speechless for a moment.

“Joseph, Persephone,” said Doctor Singh, “do twins run in any of your families?”

“Twins?” asked Joseph confused.

“I know that Mum had a twin brother,” shrugged Persephone, “and my great grandfather had a twin brother.”

“We’re having twins!” asked Joseph astounded.

“Not exactly,” chuckled Doctor Singh laughing somewhat nervously.

“Not twins, but triplets.”

“Triplets!” exclaimed Persephone. 

“Triplets,” laughed Joseph nervously. 

He didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or terrified. He was ecstatic, as now he would have three children, but now he was three times as worried about Persephone and her pregnancy.

“Two boys and girl from the look of the scan,” said Doctor Singh showing them on the screen, “so they won’t be identical.”

“At least we’ll be able to tell them apart,” beamed Persephone. 

“Joe?” asked Persephone looking towards her shellshocked husband. 

“Joe?” she asked nervously

Joseph shook himself out of his dazed state. He decided that the woman in the waiting room had probably been right. He needed to stay calm and stop panicking. That was his job here. Persephone was carrying the baby. Sorry babies. His job was to look after her and make sure that her and all the babies were safe, happy and healthy.

“That’s wonderful Sephie, just wait till Mum hears!”

“You know what Mum’s like with a crochet hook, and in six months our house is going to have three babies!”

“Please bear in mind,” said Doctor Singh, “that triplets can arrive prematurely.”

“I don’t know about you Sephie,” said Joseph as they left the hospital, “but I think this deserves celebrating!”

“Well I can’t drink, because I’m pregnant,” laughed Persephone.

“Tell you what,” said Joseph, “we’ll buy a bottle of grape juice and another of lemonade, we can pretend it’s sparkling wine. Then we can watch some tele and I’ll make the dinner.”

“Do you know what I’d really like?” asked Persephone.

“Fish and chips,” she beamed.

“Now if that’s your craving for the next six months, I can cope with that,” laughed Joseph.

Joseph dropped Persephone off at home before going to buy the fish and chips and get the grape juice and lemonade. 

She got out her marking and pulled out Frankie’s essay which was on top. Unsurprisingly it came out as a first, as Persephone had known it would.

She was going to ring Frankie on the phone, when Joseph came back home.

“Tea’s up!” he called.

“What do you want to watch tonight?” asked Joseph as he unwrapped the parcels.

“I suppose we’re going to have to start getting some more children’s shows in soon,” she muttered looking through the tapes.

“We’ve got kids shows,” shrugged Joseph.

Persephone looked unconvinced as Joseph pulled out a tape.

“The Goodies!” he sang, “Goodie, Goodie Yum Yum!”

“You do realise,” laughed Persephone, “that if most people are looking for a kid’s show they put on Maisy Mouse or the Teletubbies or even a Disney film, but not The Goodies.”

“The Goodies is a children’s show,” objected Joseph as he put on the tape

“For eight-year olds, not babies,” said Persephone shaking her head as she ate her dinner, “we’ll have to get some tapes for the little ones.”

“But for tonight?” asked Joseph hopefully.

“We can watch The Goodies,” said Persephone chuckling slightly as she gave in to her husband’s childish humour.


	5. Interior Decorating

The Cohen’s spent the Easter holidays getting ready for the babies. 

Apart from Passover and starting to prepare for the Summer term, they were completely free for three weeks.

Joseph had roped in the students from next door to help with decorating the nursery. So, on the first Saturday afternoon of the Easter holidays, Joseph was up in the new nursery with Matt, Nick and Henry, Liz and Katie.

“Triplets,” said Henry shaking his head, “still can’t believe you’ve got it in you Joe.”

“Watch it,” warned Joseph, “you might not be one of my students, but if you push your luck too far, you’ll be getting extra laps of the rugby pitch.”

The furniture for the nursery had been delivered the day before, but it was all flat pack in their boxes, so it all needed building. The nursery needed painting as well.

They had applied the base paints to all four walls of what used to be the biggest spare room but was now going to be the nursery. They had decided to go for a soft light yellow for the base colour.

“It’s like melted buttercups,” said Katie wistfully, “or sunshine.”

“It just looks yellow to me,” muttered Henry as Nick sorted out the instruction manual for cradles.

They had to build three cradles, and three cribs for when the babies got older. Nick was trying to read through the instruction manual to figure out how to build the first cradle as Henry helped Joseph carry the rest of the furniture up the stairs. 

Persephone had tried to offer to help carry the furniture upstairs, but Joseph wasn’t having any of it. Persephone was supposed to be resting and getting some sleep in their room, but with all the excitement going on, she wanted to help, so they had come to a compromise. Persephone was now sitting in the nursery in the rocking chair that had arrived with the other furniture. Joseph had built the rocking chair first no Persephone could relax.

Liz seemed to be looking at the walls curiously as if trying to figure out what she wanted to paint on them. The base coat was done, so now she was going to do the fun part. 

Persephone had picked out some night lights when getting the baby things. There were stars of different sizes that were stuck on the ceiling or the walls and they could glow in the dark.  
“Do you want these on the celling Mrs C?” asked Liz as she got out the stars.

“That could work,” said Persephone, “but what do you want to do with the walls.”

Liz had brought around her acrylic paints and all her paint brushes, she wanted to make this as good as she possibly could.

“Well, it’s girls and boys,” she muttered.

“If it was just for girls I’d do flowers,” said Liz.

“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Katie.

“Teddy Bears!”

“Boring!” groaned Henry.

“Can’t you have a rugby themed nursery?” asked Matt hopefully.

“No!” said Persephone firmly. She drew the line at a rugby themed nursery.

“Teddy bears could work,” considered Liz, “they could have different outfits on.”

“You’re a historian right Mr C?” asked Matt.

“We could have the teddys in historical costumes,” beamed Matt, “A Tudor teddy, a centurion teddy!”

“A hippy teddy,” laughed Nick.

“Peace man!” smirked Henry giving them the peace sign.

“Or,” suggested Liz, “we could have them based on your favourite books. Jane Austen teddys.”

“You could have a fairy teddy from a Midsummer Nights dream!” breathed Katie.

“It could work,” nodded Persephone.

Liz started drawing some rough sketches of the teddy bears with help from Persephone, whilst everyone else got started on building the furniture, they had to build the cradles, the cribs, and a changing table. They also needed to put up the shelves which were going to take up one of the walls. They needed the shelves for books, toys and assorted other things for the babies.

Once the furniture was built, they moved it out into the corridor so Liz could have space to add the extra paintings to the walls. 

By the time she had finished the painting there was several dozen different teddy bears painted on the walls. There was a Romeo teddy flirting with a Juliet teddy holding a flower up to her tower. There was a Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet teddy in regency clothing. There were of course the two most famous literary teddy bears of all, Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear.

Once the walls were dry, they set up all the furniture in the nursery and made up the little beds. 

“It seems to be missing something,” muttered Joseph as they looked around the newly decorated room.

“A certain je ne sais quoi?” suggested Nick.

“I think we all know what the quoi is,” chuckled Katie.

“Teddy bears!” they all yelled.

The very next day, Persephone and Joseph took the car to the toy shop to but enough toys for the three babies especially teddies.

“Isn’t she gorgeous,” sighed Persephone looking at a china doll with a lace dress.

“Darling, we’re going to have a little girl you can dress in pretty dresses,” laughed Joseph, “you won’t be needing the doll.”

“What if she doesn’t like wearing dresses?” asked Persephone.

“Then maybe one of the two boys will like dressing up,” laughed Joseph.

They picked out lots of toys for the three babies, they got soft blocks for them to play with and soft squishy balls that rattled when they rolled them around. They also got nearly every teddy bear in the shop. Some were huge and nearly as big as a small child, one of Persephone’s favourites was a tiny little blue bear with a pair of fluffy wings.

They loaded all the toys into the car, which took up the whole of the boot and some of the back seat.

When they got home and they had placed all the teddys in the room Joseph looked around the room with an air of satisfaction. The room looked perfect now. The only thing that made it even better was Persephone rocking back and forth in the new rocking chair cradling the doll which they had eventually bought.

“So,” chuckled Joseph perching on the changing table, “we’ve got a lovely nursery for our little tykes, but they don’t have any names.”

“Well what kind of names do you like?” asked Persephone as she got comfortable in the rocking chair.

“Cohens have always had good biblical names. Old testament names to you. Joseph, Benjamin, Rachael.”

“Hmm,” muttered Persephone.

“What did you say your grandparent’s names were, the ones who escaped Nazi Germany.”

“By the skin of their ruddy teeth,” muttered Joseph under his breath.

Joseph looked into space for a moment. It was always difficult for Joseph to think about his grandparents.

His grandparents had managed to escape Germany in 1938. His grandfather had been a successful banker in Berlin, but during Kristallnacht some people had come and smashed the windows in their house. 

His grandmother had been pregnant at the time with his father, and they didn’t think it was safe to stay in Germany anymore especially for their baby. So they sold everything and bought tickets on the first boat to England. 

The faces of their friends and neighbours haunted Joseph’s grandmother until the day that she died, because she knew exactly what had happened to them. She had had nightmares about them nearly every night.

“My grandfather never forgave himself for that, leaving his family and friends behind to that horrible fate. But as Granny always said, they couldn’t have done anything about it if they had stayed in Germany, and if they hadn’t left Dad would never have existed and neither would I.”

“Isaac and Sara Cohen,” muttered Joseph.

“Isaac,” nodded Persephone, “that’s a lovely name.”

“It’s a good strong name,” nodded Joseph, “after a good strong man.”

“My grandfather was one of the strongest, bravest men I’ve known. Taking the decision to restart your life and move to a completely new country takes guts.”

“You would have liked him,” chuckled Joseph, “always ready for a good laugh, and loved a good book. He was more of a Dickens than an Austen fan though.”

“Well, you can’t have everything,” shrugged Persephone.

“So, Isaac, we need another two,” she pointed out.

“How do you feel about Ruben?” asked Joseph.

“It’s a bit archaic isn’t it?” laughed Persephone.

“Well I like it,” said Joseph, “it’s a good sturdy traditional name.”

“Besides,” laughed Joseph, “when I want him, I can just call.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Persephone confused.

“Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby!” he half sang half yelled.

“So, Isaac and Ruben, we just need a girl’s name,” said Persephone.

“Ruth?” suggested Joseph.

“It’s a bit dull, next to Isaac and Ruben,” said Persephone.

Persephone looked at the little doll in her arms with the bright golden curls. Suddenly inspiration hit her.

“How about Rebecca?” she suggested.

“Rebecca,” pondered Joseph.

“I like it, Ruben, Isaac and Rebecca.”


	6. Vacancy

Persephone had worked very hard to get where she had in her career. She was the most promising young lecturer in the English department and was becoming quite well known in academic circles as an expert on Austen. 

Therefore, she didn’t want to take any maternity leave from lecturing or work, because sometimes when people took maternity leave it held back their careers. She wanted children but she also wanted her career. 

Therefore, Joseph and Persephone had sat down and discussed it and come to a logical conclusion, they would need an au pair. Whoever they chose was going to have work full time during the day for the first few years until the children were old enough for school, so that Joseph and Persephone could go to work.

This is why they had placed advertisements in the papers, and had even put up advertisements on the university student bulletin boards.

This was the reason why Persephone and Joseph were sat in the sitting room waiting for the applicants to arrive first thing on a Sunday morning. 

They had to pick someone soon, because it was now late May, and the babies should be arriving within the next month. But Doctor Singh had told them that they may arrive early. There was only another two weeks left of teaching, and Persephone just hoped she didn’t go into labour before then.

Joseph and Persephone wanted to hire an au pair now rather than in September, because if they hired them now, they would be a proper part of the family before Joseph and Persephone both had to go back to work.

They were meeting with the half a dozen candidates who had applied for the post that morning.

The first candidate arrived at nine o’clock exactly and he went and answered the door. 

“Good Morning Dr C!” called Matt beaming.

“Good morning Matt,” chuckled Joseph letting Matt into the house.

“May I show you through to the sitting room,” said Joseph dramatically.

“Good Morning Mrs Dr C,” said Matt shaking her hand as he sat down.

“If you ask me how long until the balloon bursts I’ll scream,” muttered Persephone.

“I won’t, but Henry asked me to ask for him,” he smirked.

“So why do you want to work as an au pair for us?” asked Joseph getting out his notebook.

“Well,” said Matt, “I get on with both of you, and you know I don’t really have a family, so I was going to be staying here for the Summer anyway.”

“Matt,” said Persephone gently, “this job will be full time for at least the first few years. You’ll get evenings off, but your classes will be during the day.”

“I could bring the babies with me!” suggested Matt enthusiastically, “everyone would think they were adorable!”

“Matt,” said Joseph raising his eyebrows.

“It was worth a try,” chuckled Matt knowing it was hopeless.

“Tell you what,” suggested Persephone, “if we can’t find anyone today, you can fill in until September.”

“Thanks!” beamed Matt giving them both a hug as he got up.

“See you at practise!” called Matt as he let the next au pair in.

Four au pairs later and they had all been hopeless. They were about to give up for the morning, but they had one last person to see.

“Hello, I’m Keith!” beamed a man with a broad Australian accent standing on the doorstep.

“Hello Keith,” chuckled Joseph, “please come in.”

“Thank you,” he beamed coming into the house.

“Persephone this is Keith, Keith this is my wife Persephone.”

“You’re both doctors right?” asked Keith as he sat down.

“Yes,” nodded Persephone, “we’re both lecturers at the university.”

“So when are you expecting?”

“In about a month,” said Joseph, “but we’re having triplets.”

“Jesus Christ!” muttered Keith under his breath.

“I mean that’s a lot of kids!”

“That’s how we felt at first,” laughed Persephone, “but we’re getting used to it.”

“So why do you want to be an au pair Keith?”

“Well I’m young, and I came to England to get my degree up in London. But I’m finishing in a few weeks, and I find I quite like it in England.”

“Don’t you want to go back to Aussie Land?” chuckled Joseph.

“No,” said Keith shaking his head.

“No family to go back to, never had much of a one in the first place. My Dad died two years ago.”

“Fair enough,” said Persephone, “how long would you be able to stay?”

“A year, maybe two depends how well things work out.”

“You do know that the job would be full time during the day whilst we’re at work?” said Persephone.

“Yes, I know that” nodded Keith, “I’m a writer, so I’m working on my first novel. I can work on that in the evenings during my time off.”

“So why do you want to work with babies?” asked Joseph.

“Well, I’ve always loved little kids, they’re great. I used to help at a day-care centre during my holidays from Uni back in Australia and I love helping look after the little ones and playing with them. They’re just so cute!”

“Well Keith,” said Persephone, “when do you finish up in London?”

“End of June,” said Keith, “I’ll have to go back for graduation in about October though.”

“We could arrange for you to have the time off for that,” said Joseph.

“If you’ll take the job,” agreed Persephone.

“You’re offering me the job!” asked Keith flabbergasted, “right here, right now!”

“You’re the best applicant,” said Joseph simply.

“Some of them were simply terrifying!” agreed Persephone.

“And some of them seemed like they were only in it for the bed and board and not going to help with the children,” said Joseph.

“And the last one,” finished Persephone, “was scared off by the word triplets.”

“Well, I can’t wait to come back next month,” said Keith shaking their hands before he left.

“And meeting your adorable babies!”

“Hey Keith,” said Joseph, as he showed him to the door, “you don’t play rugby do you?”

“Eh a bit,” shrugged Keith.

“Well, if you want, you can come to the uni rugby club I run, if you ever want a bit of a quick around.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” laughed Keith, “I’ll see you in July then.”


	7. Miracle of Miracles

Today was the last day of the term, if Persephone could just get through this afternoon, she’d be done until September. All she’d have to do is mark a mountain of exam papers and give birth to three babies.

She was pacing back and forth between the desks that no one was cheating on their papers. These were fourth year students and were about to finish their Masters, so none of them were likely to cheat and get expelled now.

Persephone was trying to ignore the pains in her stomach, they were probably just Braxton Hicks contractions, or practise contractions. She could go home in half an hour anyway.

“And your time is up!” she called clearly.

“If you will please close your papers, and label them with your names and student numbers. The results of your exams should be out within the next month.”

A few of the students shook her hand or wished her luck on the way out of the exam hall. She had taught most of these people since they were eighteen, and they had been some of her first ever students.

Frankie was standing at the back waiting for all the other students to leave, and she was carrying a small gift bag.

“Are you alright Frankie?” asked Persephone as she collected the exam papers.

“I wanted to say thank you,” mumbled Frankie, “for helping me for the last four years. I wouldn’t have made it through without you.”

“Frankie,” chuckled Persephone shaking her head, “you are a bright girl and very capable. You would have made it.”

“Anyway I wanted to say thank you, and good luck.”

Frankie passed her the gift bag, and Persephone undid the ribbon. Inside the bag was three caramel coloured teddy bears. They looked like the classic teddy bears that Persephone’s parents had once had. Each of the teddys had a velvet ribbon tied around it’s neck, one light pink, one blue and another green.

“Oh Frankie,” said Persephone, “they’re beautiful.”

Persephone grimaced as a shot of pain went through her stomach, they were getting closer together now.

“Are you alright?” asked Frankie.

“I’m fine,” said Persephone grimacing slightly.

“Just a bit tired, I need some rest.”

“Should I go get somebody,” said Frankie her eyes popping.

Persephone was in the middle of trying to tell her not to bother, when she felt like she was going to wet herself.

“Shit!” muttered Persephone looking down at her shoes which were now soaking wet.

This was happening now, whether she liked it or not.

“Frankie,” she muttered shakily between unsteady breathes, “go find Joseph!”

Frankie left the bag of teddy bears on the desk and ran to go find Joseph. She came back five minutes later pulling Joseph by the wrist as if she was trying to pull his arm off.

Persephone was leaning against the wall sat down on the floor breathing unsteadily as the pains came closer together.

“Sephie!” stammered Joseph, “how you doing?”

“Forty seconds apart,” she struggled.

“Every five minutes.”

“Right,” nodded Joseph.

“I’m going to help you up off the floor, alright?”

Persephone nodded and gripped onto Joseph’s hands as he held them out for her.

“One two three,” muttered Joseph, “up you get.”

Joseph managed to pull his heavily pregnant wife of the floor, though goodness knows how.

“You’re doing wonderfully darling,” said Joseph kissing her on the forehead.

“Frankie,” said Joseph turning to Frankie who was still watching, “this is very important, I want you to ring the hospital, and tell them that Persephone Cohen has gone into labour a fortnight early, alright?”

Frankie nodded and went to go find the phone.

“Wait!” said Frankie quickly.

“Don’t forget the teddies,” she said passing Joseph the bag before going to go and ring the phone.

“Come on darling, don’t forget to breathe steadily, in and out, in and out.”

Persephone’s breathing slowed down to a more steady pace as Joseph slowly walked her to the car.

Joseph drove to the hospital at top speed, missing all the traffic lights. If he got a speeding ticket on the way there he just didn’t care.

When they got to the hospital twenty minutes later, he dashed out of the car and helped Persephone to the maternity ward supporting her the whole way. 

They had been to the maternity ward quite a few times now but usually just for check-ups.   
Joseph gave a sigh in a deep sigh of relief, as he saw the familiar figure of Dr Singh waiting for them.

“Well done Joseph,” said Dr Singh patting him on the back.

“Why don’t we go find you a bed then hmm?” Dr Singh leading Persephone towards the beds to go and get ready.

Joseph was left standing there slightly clueless carrying a gift bag of teddy bears.

Now that Persephone was gone, he seemed to have gone into shock. When he had been trying to get her to the hospital he had been in control, he had known what he needed to do. But now Sephie had been dragged off by someone, and he had just been left standing here. Was Sephie alright? Would he ever see her again? How were the babies?

“Dr. Cohen?” called a friendly looking nurse walking over to him.

“Um yes?” he stammered.

“Doctors just checked your wife; she’s coming along nicely. Do you want to be with her?”

“Yes please,” nodded Joseph.

The nurse showed him through to the room where Persephone was lying on the bed in labour breathing unsteadily.

“Sephie darling,” said Joseph running over to her and clasping her hand, “can you hear me?”

“Hmm,” mumbled Persephone squeezing his hand.

“I need you to slow your breathing down, in and out, in and out.”

Joseph helped Persephone with her breathing and it slowed down to a much more steady pace.

Every now and again, she would have another contraction, and she would give Joseph’s hand a death grip. Joseph didn’t say anything though because he knew she was going a hundred times that amount of pain.

“Come on darling you’re nearly there,” he encouraged her.

“We can see the head!” called the midwife who was assisting Doctor Singh.

“See look Sephie one of our little one’s wants to see the world.”

“One good push Persephone, and the first one will be here!” called Doctor Singh.

“Right, come on darling, nearly there.”

“Hmm,” she mumbled before giving a huge push.

A second later, there was the sound of a baby balling at the top of its lungs.

“Would you listen to that!” beamed Joseph.

“A born rugby player if ever I saw one! Those lungs were made for yelling on a pitch!”

“Is it a girl or a boy?” whispered Persephone.

“It’s a boy,” said Dr Singh having cut the umbilical cord, “a healthy baby boy.”

“I think he looks like a Ruben,” said Joseph taking the still balling baby from the doctor.

“Shh now Ruben,” said Joseph gently rocking him back and forth, “Daddy’s here.”

Ruben looked at his father unimpressed for a moment but stopped crying and instead he stretched his mouth widely and gave a tiny little yawn.

“I think your Mummy’s tired too Rubes,” chuckled Joseph softly.

“He’s beautiful,” beamed Persephone stroking Ruben’s lock of dark curly hair.

“Oh God!” groaned Persephone, “it’s starting again!”

The midwife took Ruben and put him in a cradle so Joseph could give Persephone his full attention.

“Just take deep steady breaths Sephie, breathe through the pain. Take it out on me if you want to.”

“Of course I want to take it out on you, you idiot!” yelled Persephone between contractions.

“It’s your fault I’m in this fucking mess!”

“I deserved that,” Joseph muttered under his breath.

“Here we go again!” she grimaced clenching his hand and squeezing through the pain.

“And I can see the second head!” said Dr Singh, “this one wants to get out quick!”

One good push later and there was a second baby crying, but not quite as loudly as the first one.

The midwife passed the second baby to Joseph.

“It’s another little boy,” beamed Joseph showing him to Persephone.

“Isaac,” said Persephone quietly smiling tiredly.

“He’s certainly got a strong grip,” said Joseph as Isaac squeezed his finger.

“You’ll be a strong one Isaac like your Great Grandfather Isaac Cohen.”

“How will we tell them apart?” asked Persephone.

“Well one screams a lot louder,” said Joseph.

“They’ll be getting identity tags,” the midwife explained, “that should help you a lot in the first few weeks.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” screamed Persephone at the top of her lungs as there was another contraction.

Joseph let go of Persephone’s hand for a moment slightly taken aback. He didn’t mind her having her own religion, but she didn’t usually swear on her chosen Messiah quite so loudly.

“Joseph, I can’t do this,” she muttered tiredly closing her eyes, “I’m too tired.”

“Sephie!” said Joseph firmly, clasping her hand, “you can do this!”

“You’ve already done this twice, and we’ve got two strong boys, just one more time and we’re done, you will never have to do this ever again!”

“You promise?” she mumbled quietly.

“On my life,” said Joseph winking at her.

Persephone gripped onto Joseph’s hand again and gave the hugest squeeze yet. Joseph’s knuckles were turning white with how hard she was squeezing him.

“You’re nearly there my wonderful girl,” said Joseph, “just keep going.”

“The baby’s breach,” said Dr Singh.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” cried Persephone bursting into tears.

“You can do it sweetheart!”

Dr Singh slowly managed to turn the baby around, so it was in a safe position.

“Just keep going Sephie, you’re nearly there, one more push!”

Persephone gave one last push, and the baby was out, but this one didn’t cry, not for a long time.

“Joseph?” cried Persephone, “what’s wrong? Why isn’t our little girl crying?”

“I’m sure she’s fine Seph, she’s just shy.”

“Why isn’t she crying!” she yelled frantically, “our little boys cried!”

“It’s alright darling,” soothed Joseph holding her close, “she’ll be fine.”

At that moment, there was weak feeble cry, which turned into a slightly louder cry.

Joseph could hardly believe his ears, that would be his little Rebecca.

Dr Singh passed Rebecca to Joseph, and Joseph couldn’t believe how tiny she was. She felt like she was only half the size of Ruben. Ruben and Isaac had dark hair, almost jet black, but Rebecca’s was a light silvery blonde, it was beautiful.”

“Can I see her?” asked Persephone propping herself up on the pillows.

“Rebecca, this is your Mummy,” said Joseph kissing his daughter on the forehead, “and she loves you very much.”

“Aww,” breathed Persephone as he passed her Rebecca.

“Hello little one,” said Persephone suddenly forgetting how tired she was, “you’re so gorgeous.”

Joseph sat down on the bed next to her with Ruben and Isaac.

“I just can’t believe it,” sighed Joseph.

“Can’t believe what?” asked Persephone drowsily as she got more comfortable on her pillows.

“That they’re ours, they’re all ours.”

“You’d better believe it Joseph,” said Persephone as she drifted off to sleep Rebecca still in her arms.

Joseph let her sleep; he had a feeling this was the last good sleep she was going to get for a long time.


	8. Welcome Home!

Joseph had rung his parents to tell them the news whilst Persephone and the babies were sleeping, and Mr and Mrs Cohen couldn’t get down from London fast enough to see their grandchildren.

They didn’t care if it was the Sabbath or not, they had just become grandparents and they couldn’t wait to meet them.

They stopped off at the house to pick up the things for the babies so they could bring the babies home before they came to the hospital.

“Joseph!” Mrs Cohen half screamed rushing into the waiting room where Joseph was trying to get some sleep.

“Hmm?” he mumbled waking up and looking at her bleary eyed.

“Mum!” he exclaimed getting up and giving her a hug, “Dad!”

“How is the young father?” chuckled Mr Cohen giving his son a pat on the back.

“Tired,” said Joseph shaking his head.

“So where are our grandchildren then?” asked Mrs Cohen beaming.

“Sleeping, with Sephie.”

Mr Cohen put his arm around his son as Mrs Cohen rushed off to Persephone’s room like a woman half her age.

Persephone still had the room to herself and was fast asleep, and the babies were sleeping soundly, apart from Isaac who seemed to be waking up from his nap.

“Sephie’s sleeping,” whispered Joseph, “she had a long night.”

“Are these my grandchildren then!” exclaimed Mrs Cohen looking at the three little babies in their cots.

As they looked at the babies, Isaac gave a tiny little yawn and looked up at his father.

“This little one is Isaac,” said Joseph picking up Isaac and checking his identity bracelet then passing him to his eager grandmother.

“Isaac?” asked Mr Cohen slightly surprised. He hadn’t known that Joseph was calling one of his sons after his grandfather.

“You’ll have to tell him all about his Great Grandfather Isaac Cohen the First,” chuckled Joseph.

“I would be honoured,” said Mr Cohen his eyes filling with tears and smiling at his grandson.

“Then this one’s Ruben,” said Joseph indicating the other baby with the dark hair who was still sleeping.

“And this little angel, is Rebecca,” he finished as Rebecca blinked at him tiredly as she woke up.

“Hello little one,” whispered Joseph picking her up and holding her gently to him.

“Have you had a nice little sleep?” he asked.

“She’s got so much hair!” exclaimed Mrs Cohen as she passed Isaac to Mr Cohen.

“It’s like spun gold,” said Mrs Cohen looking at Rebecca’s soft light golden curls.

“Where did it all come from?” chuckled Mr Cohen.

“The Cohens have dark hair, like Ruben and Isaac.”

“Even Sephie’s hair is brown not blonde,” agreed Mrs Cohen.

“Sephie’s Mum Catherine,” said Joseph, “she had silvery blonde hair.”

Joseph sat down on the bed next to Persephone as Mr and Mrs Cohen fussed over Isaac and Ruben who had just woken up. Ruben seemed to be very grumpy as if he wanted his breakfast.

Rebecca though was a little angel; all she did was look up at her father lovingly with her light blue eyes. 

Joseph had never felt more proud then when he looked down at his daughter. He knew fathers weren’t supposed to have favourites, but somehow Rebecca was his favourite. Maybe it was because she was so much smaller than her brothers, or maybe he was just transfixed by her silvery blue eyes.

Joseph was pulled out of his reminiscing though by Ruben’s loud balling.

“I think somebody want’s his breakfast,” chuckled Mr Cohen as his grandson screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Sephie,” Joseph said softly nudging Persephone awake.

“What?” mumbled Persephone.

“I think Ruben’s hungry,” said Joseph as Mrs Cohen passed Ruben to her.

Persephone took Ruben in her arms, and Mrs Cohen carefully showed her how to breastfeed him. Whilst Persephone fed the babies, Mr Cohen and Joseph packed the car and checked Persephone out of hospital.

Joseph carefully strapped the three travel cots into the back of the car and loaded the triplets into the car and drove home with Persephone. Mr and Mrs Cohen were following in their own car. 

When they got back to the house, there was a huge hand painted banner outside the house and huge numbers of balloons.

The banner read ‘Welcome Home Cohen Family!’ Nick, Matt, Henry, Liz and Katie from next door were all stood on the doorstep waving enthusiastically waiting to help bring in the babies and all their things.

“Well done Mrs Dr. C!” beamed Matt giving Persephone a hug and a bouquet of flowers.

“Thank you Matt,” she laughed.

“You really shouldn’t have done all this,” chuckled Joseph as he started to get the triplets out of the car.

“They’re so cute!” gushed Katie.

“Which one’s the bird then?” asked Henry as he took Ruben’s carry cot from Joseph.

“The girl,” corrected Joseph, “is Rebecca, she’s the one with the blonde hair.”

“She’s gorgeous,” said Liz, looking at Rebecca as she carried her inside.

They carried the triplets up to their new nursery and tucked them into their cots. Mrs Cohen had been busy crocheting and had made blankets for the triplets. One was granny striped in blue and green stripes which was Rubens, another was granny squares and was all sorts of colours from bright red to sky blue which was Isaac’s, Rebecca’s blanket was made up of crocheted flower squares.

The whole Cohen family were crowded around the cradles of the sleeping babies, all four of them, and all five students from next door.

Persephone was tucking the teddy bears from Frankie into the cots with the triplets. Rebecca got the teddy with the pink ribbon, Ruben got the blue, and Isaac had got the green.

“How are you going to tell them all apart though?” whispered Nick trying not to wake up the babies, “the boys I mean.”

“They’ve got the identity bracelets,” pointed out Joseph.

“They won’t stay on for very long though,” muttered Persephone.

“I’ve got a plan,” said Katie fishing in her jeans pocket and pulling out three pairs of little socks.

There were three pair of baby boots with ribbons attached, there was one pair of pink boots, another of blue and the last ones were yellow. 

“If you tie these on,” said Katie hanging the boots from the end of each cot, “you can tell them apart. If he’s wearing blue socks, he’s Ruben, if he’s wearing yellow socks, he’s Isaac.”

“It’s fairly obvious which one Rebecca is,” smirked Henry making Mr Cohen laugh.

After a while the students headed back to their own house next door. Mr and Mrs Cohen had gone to go and settle into the guest room, they were going to be staying for a fortnight until Keith arrived at the end of the month.

Persephone was nursing Isaac in the rocking chair, and Joseph was leaning against her legs holding Rebecca, Ruben was sleeping soundly

“They’re so beautiful aren’t they,” muttered Persephone tiredly looking at Isaac as she rocked both Isaac and herself to sleep.

“Hmm,” he nodded.

Rebecca seemed to smile up at her father as she cradled him, her eyes seeming to shine like tiny little stars.

“But you’re the most beautiful,” he whispered to Rebecca, “my Baby Becky!”


	9. First Trip to the Synagogue

Joseph woke up and yawned widely considering whether he had any time to do some marking of exam papers before he had to get up. There were a lot of papers to get through, and with the triplets he was having to do marking in any spare time that he had.

Then he remembered that it was the Sabbath, he wasn’t supposed to work today, not until six o’clock when the Sabbath was over this evening. Instead of getting a few papers marked, he just enjoyed the peace and quiet whilst the triplets were all sleeping for once.

He was just dozing off back to sleep, when he started to hear crying from the other room. He was starting to be able to tell the triplets apart by their cries. 

Ruben’s cry was loud and strong like he was yelling across a rugby pitch, Rebecca’s cry was slightly feebler than the other two as she was still so much smaller than her two brothers, and Isaac always cried as if he was trying to sing.

He listened to the cries carefully before hoping out of bed. Ruben, and Isaac from the sounds of it. He kissed Persephone on the forehead before pulling on his dressing gown as he got out of bed.

“Don’t worry lads,” said Joseph doing up his dressing gown, “super Dad is on the way!”

“Good morning my little monsters!” beamed Joseph walking through to the nursery and finding both Isaac and Ruben crying.

Joseph lifted Ruben out of his cot, and found that Ruben was wet.

“You need your nappy changing don’t you Rubey?” he chuckled undoing Ruben’s Babygro and placing him on the changing table so he could change Ruben’s nappy.

He didn’t put Ruben in a new Babygro yet, as all three of the triplets had to be immaculately turned out this morning.

“Now then,” said Joseph gently placing Ruben back in his cot.

“What’s up with you Isaac old chap hmm?”

It turned out that Isaac had also got a wet nappy, so Joseph started to change Isaac too.

“Today’s very important, you know that old man?”

Isaac merley blinked at him.

“You and your brother and sister are eight days old today, that means that we have to go to the Synagogue for a very special service. You are having your Brit Milah.”

Isaac still looked at his father confused as Joseph found him a clean nappy.

“It’s a very important ceremony, you’re going to be welcomed into the Jewish faith. You, Ruben and Rebecca are going to have your naming ceremonies, and Ruben and you are going to get the snip.”

“Less said about that the better,” muttered Joseph putting Isaac back to his crib, “you’ll be alright, I don’t even remember mine.”

Isaac blew a tiny spit bubble at Joseph and Joseph laughed at him. He had to admit, he loved parenthood so far. It had been a week of under sleeping being woken up by a baby crying and trying to squeeze in work when he could. 

But he had loved it! Looking after his little children, watching their faces lit up when he came into the room! He was sure that his children could recognise him already. He loved every moment of fatherhood, and he wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

“Hello Becky Bubala,” said Joseph picking up Rebecca, “you hungry?”

Rebecca yawned at him and blinked drowsily.

“Let’s go see if your Mummy’s awake,” he chuckled.

Joseph ran into Mrs Cohen in the corridor who was carrying three long white dresses, they were very similar to Christening dresses, but they didn’t have any crosses embroidered on them.

“Why do my sons have to wear white frilly frocks?” sighed Joseph.

“Because it’s traditional and it makes it easier for the mohel.”

Joseph raised his eyebrows in a most unconvinced expression.

“Joseph,” said Mrs Cohen firmly, “don’t look at me like that! You wore this one yourself when you were born.”

“What do you think Bubala?” asked Joseph to Rebecca.

“Eh,” jabbered Rebecca.

“I agree with this little one. Eh. I don’t think my sons should be wearing those things, but I’m not going to argue, now come on lets find your Mummy.”

Joseph carried Rebecca through to their room, and found out that Persephone was just waking up and was looking at him bleary eyed.

“Good morning Darling,” beamed Joseph.

“What was the damage?” yawned Persephone.

“Two little monsters wanted changing, and one little angel wants her mummy. Grandpa’s putting on some formula for the boys, and Granny’s been getting the gowns ready.”

“Sounds like poor Mummy’s got nothing to do,” laughed Persephone.

“Apart from give this little angel her breakfast and a nice big cuddle.”

“I think I can just about manage that,” chuckled Persephone pulling down her pyjama top to feed Rebecca.

Whilst Persephone fed Rebecca, Joseph started getting dressed for the service. He had to wear his best suit today, the triplets were going to be well dressed for the Synagogue and so was he. Then he combed through his short thick curly hair before putting on his Yakama like he had a thousand times before. But today was different. Today, they were taking Ruben, Isaac and Rebecca to the Synagogue and being introduced to the community.

“How do I look?” asked Joseph as Persephone did her pyjama top back up.

“You look fine Joseph,” muttered Persephone, “it doesn’t matter anyway, they won’t be looking at you.”

Persephone pulled herself out from the warmth of the duvet to get dressed herself as she went to get up.

“Come here Becky Bubala,” said Joseph taking his daughter, “shall we go get you in your pretty dress?”

Joseph carried Rebecca through to the nursery as if she was the most precious thing in the world, which of course she was. 

The dress that Rebecca was going to wear was originally a christening dress that Mrs Cohen had seen in a charity shop window. It didn’t have any crosses embroidered, but hundreds of tiny cross stitches which made up flowers on the gown.

“There you go sweetheart,” beamed Joseph as he finished doing up the little buttons.

“Just as pretty as your Mummy!” he chuckled kissing her on the forehead.

The two boys were also wearing their long white robes, Ruben seemed to be squirming as if he wanted his Babygro back on, or maybe he knew about the circumcision that was going to happen that morning. Isaac was sleeping soundly in his own cot, nothing ever phased Isaac as he cared about was sleeping and eating.

Persephone came into the nursery wearing a knee length navy blue dress and her hair was pulled into a neat bun. She usually dressed modestly anyway, but even more so today as they were going to the Synagogue.  
“How are we going to tell those boys apart?” she sighed, “they look even more alike in those matching outfits.”

“You’ve forgotten about these,” said Joseph getting out three pairs of handknitted socks.

“They’re not going to wear those with those beautiful gowns,” asked Persephone raising her eyebrows.

“If we mix them up now,” said Joseph, “we might end up calling Isaac Ruben for the rest of their lives.”

Joseph put the boots onto the triplet’s tiny feet and tied them on so they wouldn’t fall off.

“Blue for Ruben,” he beamed, “yellow for Isaac, and pink for Becky.”

“We all ready in here?” asked Mr Cohen poking his head around the door.

“I don’t think Ruben’s too impressed,” said Joseph picking up the balling Ruben, “I think he knows what’s coming.”

“Don’t worry little Ruben,” soothed Mr Cohen taking Ruben rocking him gently, “one minute and it’s all over.”

“I was terrified when you had yours Joey,” admitted Mrs Cohen, “but you were fine.”

Persephone picked up Rebecca, and Joseph got Rebecca and they headed out of the house. Mrs Cohen was pushing the huge pram big enough to fit all of the triplets in and they loaded the babies in outside.

When they got outside the house though, The Cohens were surprised to find the students from next door standing out on the pavement. Liz and Katie were wearing nice dresses, and the three boys were wearing suits. 

It was June and the country was in the middle of heatwave, so the boys were carrying their suit jackets rather than wearing them, and Matt hadn’t done up his tie yet, it was just hanging loose around his neck. 

Henry though was looking beyond cool. He looked almost like a Mafia boss, with a pair of dark sunglasses, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, and calmly puffing on a cigarette.

“Where you lot off to at ten o’clock in the morning?” asked Joseph.

“To the Synagogue,” said Nick as if nothing had been more obvious.

Joseph was surprised that they wanted to come to the service, he had mentioned it to Matt and Nick a few days ago but hadn’t expected any of them to come to the Synagogue today.

Mrs Cohen pushed the pram to the Synagogue followed by a procession of people in their best clothes. It was safe to say that there was not a prouder woman in the whole of Oxford that day.

It was only a short walk to the Synagogue and as it was so warm, it was quite a pleasant walk. Occasionally passers-by would stop to look in the pram and admire the triplets.

If the passers-by had admired the Cohen babies, it was nothing compared to how ecstatic the people at the Synagogue were to meet them. There were already a few small children in the congregation, but no babies, and they had never had triplets.

“Oh! Joseph, Sephie!” exclaimed Mr Rosenbloom, looking into the pram.

“They’re beautiful,” agreed Mrs Rosenbloom, “the boys look exactly like you Joseph, and you little girl looks like a tiny angel.”

“They’re perfect,” agreed Mrs Schneider.

“Oh, go on,” whispered Rachael conspiratorially to Persephone, “give me some hints on the names.”

Rachael was one of Persephone’s closest friends. Sometimes they would have her around for Sabbath dinner on Friday evening, sometimes Rachael and Persephone would go clothes shopping together.

“It’s supposed to be a secret,” laughed Persephone, ‘you’ll find out in a few minutes anyway.”

“I’m her godmother,” said Rachael shaking her head.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” laughed Persephone.

The Cohen’s went to go and sit at the front of the Synagogue with the babies, and the students sat together in the row behind them.

Once everyone was sat down, Rabbi Schneiderman came up to the front of the room.

“Good morning everyone, we have a very special service today. A week ago, Joseph and Persephone Cohen had three babies.”

“Their two sons are going to be having their Brit Malah today and we shall be announcing their names during that. They have decided to call their daughter Rebecca Sara Rachael Cohen.”

Rachael face lit up as she realised, they had used her name for one of Rebecca’s middle names.

Then they had the service, but at the end of that the Mohel came up to the front. The Mohel was specially trained to do the circumcision of the babies.

Joseph and Mr Cohen carried Ruben and Isaac up to the front and sat down the babies on their laps.

Persephone looked terrified, throughout the whole thing. Both the boys were screaming at the top of their lungs and Persephone nearly ran up to the front to say she had changed her mind entirely. Mrs Cohen though held her daughter in laws hand comfortingly and they both prayed silently. 

Finally, it was all over, and Joseph and Mr Cohen soothed the crying babies.

“We are proud to welcome to the community,” said Rabbi Schneiderman, “Isaac Joseph, Ruben Benjamin, and Rebecca Sara Rachael Cohen, and we are hope that they will grow to know our loving God day by day.”

Mrs Cohen took Rebecca from Persephone so Persephone could have her hands free for a cup of tea.

“It wasn’t that different from a christening then,” said Katie.

“Apart from the er,” said Henry smirking and coughing discreetly.

After the service, everyone from youngest member of the community who was only four, to Mrs Liebermann who was nearly a hundred came to fuss over the babies.

“She doesn’t look very Jewish,” muttered Mrs Liebermann holding Rebecca.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” laughed Persephone.

“Babies don’t have hooked noses Mrs L,” said Joseph shaking his head.

“No it’s the hair,” said Mrs Liebermann, “we usually have dark hair but Rebecca is so fair.”

“She’s got my Mother’s hair,” explained Persephone.

“And she’s beautiful,” beamed Mrs Cohen.

“Yes,” nodded Mrs Liebermann passing Rebecca back to her grandmother, “she is beautiful.”

They took the triplets home after the service to get them changed out of their gowns and back into their Babygro’s. 

Ruben and Isaac didn’t seem to have been affected by the ceremony earlier and were sleeping soundly in their little cots.

Persephone was slowly rocking the babies to sleep, and Joseph was leaning against her legs. Eventually all three of them fell asleep, Rebecca in her mother’s arms, Persephone in the rocking chair, and Joseph leaning against his wife’s legs.


	10. Meeting the Uncles

It had reached July now, and Persephone and Joseph had finished marking the exam papers the day before. Mr and Mrs Cohen had gone back to London that morning after helping with the triplet’s breakfast.

It wasn’t like Persephone didn’t like her parent’s in law visiting, she loved them so much almost as much as she had loved her own parents. But Mrs Cohen was a bit full on sometimes, she sometimes felt as if she had married two people Joseph and his mother.

She looked after and berated Joseph as if he was still a child sometimes. Always saying that Joseph and Persephone needed feeding up and complaining if either of them got home late from work or missed a meal. 

Mrs Cohen had been batch cooking though, and she hadn’t left the house until the freezer was full of all Joseph’s favourite meals including a huge container of matzo ball soup, a whole cheesecake a brisket and a noodle kugel.

Persephone had been very confused when she had first been given noodle kugel which was a kind of cheese pasta bake. But what she hadn’t been expecting was raisins and cinnamon to be served with pasta! 

Mrs Cohen had left enough meals in the freezer to keep Joseph, Persephone and Keith fed for well over a week. She had even vacuumed the whole house before she left!

Keith was arriving that afternoon as he had now finished his degree in London, so Persephone was changing the bed in Keith’s room, so he had nice clean sheets whilst Joseph went to go and collect Keith with all his luggage from the train station.

The babies were sleeping that afternoon, but Rachael was coming around this evening and bringing fish and chips for everyone for dinner. Joseph had lots of friends at work and was mates with a couple of the other rugby coaches, but Persephone’s best friend was Rachael. 

Rachael was a lawyer who worked for the legal company based in Oxford Kaufmann, Goldberg and Shubert. Rachael’s Dad Mr Kaufmann was one of the senior partners in the company, so when Rachael had graduated two years ago with a First from Cambridge, she had been offered a job with the company straight away.

She only lived five minutes away, so if Persephone wanted a quick chat, all she had to do was ring up Rachael, and Rachael would be there fifteen minutes later having stopped to buy cake on the way.

“Is there anybody home!” called Joseph through the front door carrying two large suitcases.

“Joe!” exclaimed Persephone rushing down the stairs at top speed to give him a huge hug.

Joseph put the suitcases down in the corridor and lifted Persephone in the air for a hug.

“I was only gone half an hour,” laughed Joseph putting her back down.

“Thirty eight minutes and forty six seconds,” corrected Persephone.

“Hello Mrs Cohen,” said Keith coming in the door with a huge backpack.

“My Mother in law is Mrs Cohen,” laughed Persephone, “you can call me Sephie.”

“Right you are then,” chuckled Keith.

“How you feeling?” asked Keith, “you look great for someone who only gave birth two weeks ago.”

“That’s because last time you saw me, I was eight months pregnant,” muttered Persephone as Joseph helped carry Keith’s bags upstairs.

Keith dropped off his bags in his new room, before going to go and see the babies.

“They are the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen,” said Keith as Ruben grabbed his finger and squeezed it.

“You have to say that,” laughed Joseph.

“All babies are beautiful in their own way,” said Keith.

At this point, Isaac woke up and started screeching like a banshee.

“Apart from when they’ve got a wet nappy,” said Persephone picking Isaac up out of his cot.

Once they had sorted out Ruben, Isaac and Rebecca, they carried them downstairs in their carrycots. They didn’t have any work today, as Persephone and Joseph had finished off marking all the exam papers, so they were taking the afternoon off to get to know Keith.

“What do you want to watch Sephie?” asked Joseph flicking through the videotapes.

“Well Keith’s only just arrived, he should pick,” said Persephone.

“What you guys got?”

“Let’s see,” muttered Joseph, “Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Ripping Yarns, Pride and Prejudice.”

Keith gave an unconvinced expression at the sound of Jane Austen.

“Dads Army, Monty Python.”

“Stop right there,” said Keith, “you had me at Monty Python.”

“What you got?” he asked excitedly.

“All of it,” beamed Joseph.

Joseph decided to start off by putting on a random tape of Monty Pythons Flying Circus and settling onto the sofa next to Persephone and putting Ruben in his arms.

“Ok Rubes,” said Joseph cradling Ruben and showing him the television.

“Now then,” said Joseph as John Cleese came onto the screen, “that’s your Uncle John, he’s very important and has lots of silly walks.”

“And that one, is Uncle Eric,” introducing him to Eric Idle. “He’s the cool one and plays the guitar.”

“They’re not really their Uncles,” said Persephone cuddling Rebecca, “no matter how talented the Python’s are.”

“I want to start their education at a young age,” said Joseph, “no son of mine isn’t going to know the difference between an Eric Idle and a Terry Jones.”

Persephone shook her head in desperation.

“That is Uncle Graham,” pointing out Graham Chapman, “you can usually tell if it’s Graham because he’ll have a pipe in his mouth.”

“That’s Uncle Terry,” showing him Terry Jones, “he’s a very funny man, and he is actually Welsh.”

Then Joseph’s face lit up.

“And that, is the one and only Uncle Mikey,” said Joseph beaming with pride, “the great Palinster, the globetrotter, the greatest man to ever walk this earth!”

“Joseph,” laughed Persephone as Joseph got carried away again.

“He’s a very talented man,” chuckled Joseph before settling back to watch the rest of the show.

A few tapes later, there was voice out in the hallway.

“Fish and chips!” called Rachael, “come and get them while they’re hot!”

“Rach!” exclaimed Persephone rushing up to go and hug her best friend.

“Hi Sephie,” laughed Rachael putting down the bulging bag full of fish and chips.

“How’s the man from Aussieland?” she whispered conspiratorially so that Joseph and Keith couldn’t hear them from the other room.

“He’s fine,” laughed Persephone, “they’ve been watching Monty Python.”

“Oh! You haven’t watched Life of Brian, yet have you?” asked Rachael desperately, “it’s my favourite!”

“No,” said Persephone putting her arm around Rachael and helping her carry through the dinner, “we’ve been saving it.”

“Keith, this is Rachael,” said Joseph as he changed the video tape, “Rach, this is Keith.”

Keith looked up from where he had been feeding Rebecca from a bottle, and he nearly dropped the bottle out of surprise. He had known that Joseph and Persephone’s friend was coming around that evening, but he hadn’t expected her to look so jaw droppingly gorgeous.

She had shoulder length chocolate brown hair pulled back with a thick red headband. She was wearing a sleeveless white blouse and a pair of denim shorts because of the heatwave. She wasn’t skinny, she wasn’t overweight though. 

Keith didn’t like girls to be skinny as a rake, he liked girls to have a bit of weight on them, they were nicer to cuddle.

“Keith,” said Joseph interrupting Keith from his thoughts, “do you want salt and vinegar?”

“I’m sorry what?” asked Keith shutting his mouth like a trap and took his gaze away from Rachael.

“On your chips?” asked Joseph as he handed out the dinner, “do you want salt and vinegar?”

“Oh, yes please, I can’t stand plain chips.”

Rachael smirked at him slightly as she passed him a portion of fish and chips, and piled ketchup onto her own.

“Do you mind if I sit next to you?” asked Rachael already squeezing onto the sofa next to him without waiting for an answer.

“Of course not,” stammered the usually confident Keith who found himself being very flustered.

Keith put Rebecca back in her carry cot which he placed next to him on the sofa and tucked into his fish and chips. Joseph and Persephone sat down on the other sofa with the two boys and watched the opening of Life of Brian as they ate the dinner with their fingers out of the wrappings.

“I’d forgotten that Brian was a Cohen!” laughed Rachael, “if you two have another kid, you should call him Brian.”

“What?” asked Joseph. 

“Brian Roger Roderick Cohen?” chuckled Joseph imitating Michael Palin’s lisp when he was playing Pontius Pilate.

“I think we’ve got enough children thank you,” muttered Persephone tiredly.

“Besides,” said Keith shaking his head, “next to Brian all the other names would look bad. I mean, Ruben’s got no comedic value, but since when did John Cleese ever star in a film about someone called Isaac?”

Rachael burst into hysterics and nearly choked on her chip. Joseph looked slightly annoyed. The video tape was still showing commercials, so she wasn’t laughing at the film. 

Rachael hadn’t laughed at his impression of Michael Palin, but she seemed to think that Keith was hilarious.

At this point though the film started, and Joseph became immersed in the film. It was for this reason, that Joseph didn’t notice Keith and Rachael moving closer and closer together on the sofa as the film went on.


	11. Back to Work

It was late September, and the leaves were beginning to change. Persephone usually loved this time of year, going back to teaching when the colleges reopened, watching the leaves on the tree slowly change colours.

This year though it wasn’t the same, she was dreading going back to college today. It wasn’t that she wasn’t ready or prepared, or that she didn’t enjoy lecturing and interacting with the students. But she just didn’t want to go to back to work, and Joseph seemed to be thinking the same way.

The triplets were three months old now and growing by the day. 

Rebecca had been smiling for a month now, and she had a special smile for each person. She always cooed in excitement when Persephone picked her up.

Ruben was always full of energy and had started crawling already. Joseph would chase him around the house dangling his favourite teddy in front of him, trying to get Ruben to reach it.

Isaac loved to laugh! He loved to hear other people laugh, and when he laughed his laugh was so cute, it made other people laugh even more.

She was worried that when she went back to work, she would miss something important. Isaac’s first word, Ruben trying to walk. She knew that Joseph was going to miss his constant cuddles with his Baby Becky Bubala.

“You ready darling?” asked Joseph doing up his tie.

Persephone straightened Joseph’s shirt collar under his jumper and made sure his tie was tied properly.

“Cheer up Sephie,” said Joseph giving her a hug, “we’ll be back tonight.”

“I know,” muttered Persephone pulling on her boots, “I just love them so much, and I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Persephone Cohen,” said Joseph putting his hands on her shoulders.

“We’ve talked about this, you don’t want to give up work, and I understand that. I know you love the kids, and so do I. But you’ve got to remember, you love your job too.”

“I know,” sighed Persephone sitting down on the bed.

“The kids will still be here tonight, there’ll be fine.”

Persephone put her arm around Joseph, and they headed downstairs to say goodbye to the triplets and Keith. Rebecca was crying as they came into the sitting room.

“Don’t worry darling,” said Persephone bouncing Rebecca on her hip, “Mummy’s right here.”

Rebecca seemed to stop crying the second that Persephone picked her up, it turned out that all Rebecca had wanted was a cuddle with her Mummy.

“We’ll see you tonight Bubala,” said Joseph kissing Rebecca on the forehead.

Joseph seemed to wink at Keith quickly as they headed out of the door. Persephone and Joseph hopped on their bikes outside the house and headed off to college. 

Persephone had several lectures in the morning and tried not to think about the babies at home by throwing herself into her work. She had a second-year class on 19th century novels, and a fourth year class on Virginia Woolf that morning.

In the afternoon, she had a three-hour lecture with her new first years and was introducing them to Jane Austen.

She was giving the same lecture she always gave to her first years, about how underneath the social etiquette Jane Austen were literary masterpieces, but not with the same enthusiasm as usual.

“So once you actually understand the society of the time, and understand the customs,” she explained, “you can understand the true brilliance of the work.”

“Any questions?” she asked looking around the class.

Half the first years looked to terrified, and too scared to actually ask their questions. It was always the same with first years, they were intimidated by the lecturers, even if Persephone was actually younger than some of the mature students. But give it time, and the students would relax.

Just when Persephone was about to tell them all to go on a break, before they came back and got on with Sense and Sensibility, there was a knock on the classroom door.

“Come in?” said Persephone thinking it might be a student who was an hour late, having got lost.

Keith opened the door and pushed in the triple pram with the triplets beaming in it. They were wearing matching romper suits and holding their teddy bears which made them look even more cute than usual.

“Hello,” beamed Keith, “I hope we’ve come at a good time, I think that these little one’s are missing their Mummy.”

“Oh!” exclaimed one of the girls in the front row, “they’re so cute!”

“How old are they?” asked one of the boys.

“Triplets!” beamed said a girl from the back row, “and I thought twins were cute!”

“What are their names?” asked another boy.

It seemed as if the first years were no longer scared to talk, because the adorable triplets had broken the ice.

“They’re three months old,” laughed Persephone picking up Ruben whose arms were reaching out for her.

“This one’s Ruben he’s a right little monkey. The other boy is Isaac, he’s always smiling. And the little girl is Rebecca, she’s her Daddy’s favourite, although he tries not to admit it.”

“And this is our au pair Keith,” said Persephone as Keith took a deep bow.

“Have you got a favourite?” asked a boy, who up until now had been doodling in his notebook but was now showing the upmost interest.

“No,” laughed Persephone as Ruben pulled at a stray lock of her hair, “I love them all equally.”

“I think your Daddy’s waiting in the staffroom where everyone wants to meet you,” said Keith.

“You can all have a fifteen-minute break,” laughed Persephone shaking her head as she and Keith left the lecture hall.

The lecturers were all in the staffroom having their mid-afternoon cups of tea and coffee, but they all thought that the triplets were adorable.

They all said how much Ruben and Isaac looked like Joseph, and how adorable Rebecca was with her beautiful blonde curls.

Joseph had known how worried Persephone had been about going back to work because she didn’t want to miss her children. But Joseph had managed to ask Keith to bring the triplets in to introduce them to everyone. She had the best family in the world!


	12. Happy Birthday!

It was a Sunday morning, and Joseph was standing on a chair hanging up a large number of multicoloured paper chains and hanging up the birthday banners. Persephone was in the kitchen helping Mrs Cohen make the birthday cake and everything else for the party, and Rachael and Keith were busy blowing up dozens of balloons.

Hilde the au pair was upstairs keeping the triplets entertained whilst everyone got ready for the party.

It was strange to think that the triplets were turning four years old today. All their friends were coming round from nursery to join them for the birthday party, their Granny and Grandpa, and their Uncle Keith and Aunty Rachael were coming to the party.

Keith didn’t work for them as an au pair anymore, he had stopped two years ago, and had moved in with Rachael his girlfriend. Keith now had a job as a journalist at a local newspaper, but even though Keith wasn’t the au pair anymore, he saw the kids at least once a week.

The triplets had gotten so big, and they couldn’t wait to start reception in a few months and make lots of new friends.

Ruben had started walking at six months. Ruben had never really walked; he had gone straight from crawling to running. He was just as full of energy now. He was always rushing around the house like there was no tomorrow. If he sat still for even one minute, he made up for it by running for the next ten minutes. 

Ruben had in a way been adopted by the Joseph’s university rugby team as a mascot. Joseph couldn’t do as much coaching as he used to, but always coached the rugby team on Sunday afternoon’s and Ruben came with him, and Ruben would cheer them on from the side-lines rushing up and down the side of the pitch with them. Sometimes, they would mess about and use Ruben instead of the rugby ball and throw him around and run around with him.

Isaac was a little chatter box. His first word had been Daddy, and he hadn’t stopped since. Isaac would talk about everything and anything if you would sit down and listen to him, and he was always smiling. 

Isaac was quite a bright boy, and could already read even though he was only four. He didn’t brag about it though, but he would read to his friends or his brother if there was no adult around and they wanted a story.

Rebecca could already read too, Persephone had taught her because Rebecca would get upset whenever anyone had stopped reading to her, when Rebecca still wanted to read more.

Rebecca loved stories, and was just as bright as Isaac, but didn’t have as many friends as Isaac or Ruben, she preferred to keep to herself, reading a book quietly or playing on her own.

Persephone and Joseph had been worried about Rebecca as she got older and the differences between Rebecca and her brothers became more obvious. They had taken her to be looked at by the doctors, and they had told her that Rebecca had high functioning autism.

This meant that Rebecca was going to struggle in socially situations, or with making friends for her whole life, and that it was only going to get worse. When Joseph had first been told it had sounded like a terminal illness, but the doctor had explained that Rebecca could have a perfectly normal childhood with help from her family and coping strategies.

Their GP had actually congratulated them for noticing that there was something wrong in the first place, apparently autism was usually overlooked in girls. Joseph had had to try and stop himself from screaming at the doctor. Of course, they had noticed that Rebecca acted different from her brothers, she was their daughter!

“Joseph,” said Mr Cohen coming in with a huge stack of presents.

“The kids will be getting here soon,” said Mr Cohen helping him down from the chair, “you want to go and get the kids?”

“Ok Dad,” chuckled Joseph pushing a bright green balloon out of his way as he went upstairs.

He could hear screams of laughter coming from the boy’s bedroom. it sounded like they were playing cowboys and Indians or something.

“Do you surrender!” yelled Ruben as he and Isaac pointed empty water pistols at Hilde who they had cornered against a wall and kneeling down to their height.

“I surrender oh Great King Zork!” said Hilde putting her hands in the air.

“Alright cowboys!” called Joseph, “time to put your weapons down, the Wild West is closed for the day!”

“We’re not playing cowboys Daddy,” said Ruben rolling his eyes at him.

“We’re playing aliens!” beamed Isaac, “Ruben’s the Great King Zork, and Hilde is an alien from another planet.”

“And who are you?” asked Joseph impressed.

“Buzz Lightyear!” said Isaac standing proudly with his hands on his hips.

Isaac and Ruben both loved Buzz Lightyear, and they had to take it in turns to play him.

“Of course you are,” laughed Joseph, “well I’m afraid you’re all going to have to come back down to earth, it’s nearly time for your party. Your friends will be soon.”

“Will there be cake?” asked Ruben.

Joseph nodded beaming at him.

“One each,” said Joseph.

Isaac licked his lips in anticipation.

“But you won’t be getting any cake, if you don’t get moving,” said Hilde.

Isaac and Ruben couldn’t move fast enough and raced each other down the stairs to where the party was being held.

Joseph went across the corridor, to where the door to Rebecca’s room was open. He could hear Rebecca chatting away in her room. 

Rebecca had moved out of the nursery about a year ago into the box room which had used to be used for assorted boxes of spare books and photo albums. It wasn’t a very big room, but Rebecca wasn’t a very big girl. It had enough room for her bed, her wardrobe and all her toys.

Everything in Rebecca’s room was neatly organised. All the books were sorted by size, and on the top shelf of Rebecca’s little bookshelf were her teddy bears, she had quite a collection and were organized by size. Even the shoes were lined up neatly against the wall.

Rebecca was sat on her bed chatting away holding one of her teddy’s.

“We could go play in the garden,” said Rebecca, “but Mummy told us to stay in the house.”

“Hmm, yes,” nodded Rebecca, “the boys are being a bit silly today, far too loud!”

“Who are you talking to Bubula?” asked Joseph standing in the doorway.

Joseph had gotten used to Rebecca talking to imaginary friends, it had been a habit for a while now.

“Hermione,” said Rebecca putting the teddy back with the other teddy’s in the right place.

“Ah Hermione Granger?” asked Joseph looking in completely the wrong direction, “is she visiting from Hogwarts?”

Harry Potter was one of Rebecca’s obsessions, she had read all four books in the last year since she had learnt to read. Joseph read the books first in case she had any questions. But he didn’t mind this particular obsession, as he quite enjoyed the books himself.

One of Rebecca’s 

“No,” giggled Rebecca, “not Hermione Granger, Hermione Cohen.”

“Hermione Cohen?” asked Joseph surprised, “is she your sister?”

“Yes,” beamed Rebecca.

“Would you like a sister Bubula?”

“No,” said Rebecca confused as to why he thought she would.

“Do you know what today is?” asked Joseph sitting down on her bed.

“It’s my birthday,” she nodded, “I’m four!”

“Yes, and there’s a party downstairs with all your friends.”

“I don’t have friends,” she muttered. She didn’t get on with the other children from nursery school.

“Uncle Keith’s there, and Aunty Rachael,” said Joseph coaxingly, “and Granny and Grandpa, you like them.”

“If you don’t want to play with the other children you don’t have to,” said Joseph, “just try and have a nice time.”

“Can Hermione come?” asked Rebecca hopefully.

Joseph had a feeling that this would be the only way he could get Rebecca to come to her own birthday party was if she was allowed to bring her imaginary friend.

“Only if you and Hermione at least try and join in with some of the games.”

“Ok Daddy,” said Rebecca hopping off the bed and giving her Dad a hug.

Joseph loved it when Rebecca hugged him. He thanked his lucky stars that one of the symptoms of autism his daughter didn’t have yet was having problems with personal contact. She was always ready for a hug or to hold his hand and that always made him feel better after a long day at work.

“Come on Bubala,” laughed Joseph taking her hand as they walked down the stairs for the party.

There was about a dozen of their friends from nursery running around playing in the sitting room, and the parents were drinking cups of tea.

The children were screaming, and playing tag running in and out of the balloons. Rebecca hid behind her father’s legs so that she could try and pretend she wasn’t there.

“Come on Becky!” laughed Isaac as he and Ruben grabbed one of her hands each.

They tried to get Rebecca to join in with the fun, throwing balloons at her, but Rebecca didn’t like how loud it was, and there were too many people there.

She ran back over to her Daddy in floods of tears were Joseph scooped her up.

Rebecca’s own family were worried about Rebecca of course, but her getting upset like this was nothing unusual, she was so much more sensitive than her brothers, and anything could set her off crying.

The other parents looked over at Rebecca in confusion, why was Rebecca crying at her own birthday party?

“What’s wrong sweetheart?” asked Joseph brushing the tears off of Rebecca’s face.

“Too loud,” she sobbed crying into Joseph.

“What’s wrong Joe?” asked Persephone coming over from where she had been supervising the other children.

“It’s too loud,” muttered Joseph.

“Becky,” said Persephone gently, “it’s Mummy.”

Rebecca looked up at Persephone and blinked at her tearily.

“We’re going to play some games in a bit,” said Persephone, “they’re quieter, pass the parcel.”

“We might even play sleeping lions in a bit,” said Persephone.

Rebecca beamed, she was the best at that game, just lying on the floor quietly, the other children usually started giggling or wanting to get up and move about. But sleeping lions was her favourite game.

“Ok kids!” Joseph putting Rebecca back down on the floor, “who wants to play pass the parcel?”

“Me me me!!” yelled Ruben jumping up and down with his hand in the air.

“If he’s this excitable before the cake and sweets I can’t wait until later,” smirked Keith as he helped organise the children in a circle.

The children sat down in the circle and played pass the parcel nicely before playing sleeping lions. Rebecca won sleeping lions and she was so pleased; she never won any games.

They played a few more games, but Rebecca mostly watched chatting away to her grandpa sitting on his lap, which was followed by birthday tea.

The was so much food cheese sandwiches, and marmite sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, mini hamburgers, tiny cheese and tomato pizzas, raisins, crudites with hummus. All this was followed by pudding, there was five different flavours of jelly including Isaac’s favourite orange, ice cream, and three separate birthday cakes. There were three small cakes rather than one big one, Rebecca’s was pink with strawberry jam, Ruben’s was a chocolate fudge cake, and Isaac’s was a chocolate chip sponge.

After the tea, they decided to open all the presents. Joseph and Persephone decided it was a good time to open the presents now before Rebecca lost interest in the party entirely.

The triplets opened the presents from all their little friends first, and got lots of toys and colouring books.

Then came the presents from their family.

“I think you’ll find there’s a theme to all these Becky,” chuckled Keith passing her the first present.

She opened it and found a brand-new hardback book.

“Harry Potter and the,” said Rebecca quickly.

“Order of the,” she said more slowly sounding out the last word, “Pheo-nix.”

“Well done darling!” beamed Persephone giving her a quick hug.

“I had to queue up at the bookshop for hours for that,” muttered Keith, “it only came out today.”

Keith had gotten Isaac and Ruben tiny Australian rugby tops.

“Thank you, Uncle Keith!” said Rebecca putting the book aside.

Her grandparents had gotten her the first two Harry Potter films on DVD which she couldn’t wait to watch.

Then they got their presents from their parents. They had given all three of the children backpacks bursting with pencil cases and notebooks. Isaac’s backpack was blue, Ruben’s was red, and Rebecca’s was pink.

“We want you three to get a good start when you head off to school,” said Persephone.

Ruben and Isaac started ripping open the last of their presents which contained lots of toys, including Nerf Guns and a PlayStation 2 to share between them with a stack of games to go with it.

Joseph passed Rebecca her last three presents which were in large boxes.

In each box was a large china doll. One of the dolls had bushy brown hair, and chocolate brown eyes. This doll was wearing a version of a school uniform including a school backpack like Rebecca’s.

“Who do you think that is?” asked Joseph.

“Hermione!” exclaimed Rebecca hugging the china doll which was about half the size of Rebecca.

Then Rebecca opened the next one and found a doll with waist length red hair and bright green eyes. The doll was wearing a sparkly purple party dress.

“Ginny!” said Rebecca giving the second doll a hug and putting her down next to Hermione.

The last doll had silvery blonde hair and soft blue eyes. The waist length hair was plaited into one long plait down the doll’s back She was wearing a pair of jeans and a light pink jumper.

“What’s this one called?” asked Persephone as Rebecca looked at the doll.

“I don’t know,” said Rebecca confused, she couldn’t think of which Harry Potter character the doll looked like.

“She looks like you!” said a little girl called Charlotte trying to be helpful.

“I can’t call her Rebecca,” said Rebecca shaking her head, “I’m Rebecca!”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out darling,” said Joseph gently.

“Do you like them?” asked Persephone.

Joseph and Persephone knowing that Rebecca was going to have problems with social interactions and making friends, had bought her these dolls so that she could have some friends to play with. Rebecca had a very good imagination, and currently the only friends she had apart from Ruben and Isaac were imaginary.

“I love them!” said Rebecca giving both her parents a huge hug.

Once all the wrapping paper had been cleared away, the other children played more games like musical chairs, and musical statues.

Rebecca sat down next to her Aunty Rachael with her three new dolls.

“You new dolls are very pretty,” said Rachael as she looked at Ginny’s party dress.

“Still not got no name for the blonde one?” asked Rachael.

“No,” sighed Rebecca, pulling at the end of the doll’s plait.

“You never know,” whispered Keith, “she might be in your new book.”

Rebecca’s face split into a grin and opened her new book.

“Keith!” whispered Joseph frantically as he that Rebecca had already started the book.

“I haven’t read it yet,” he muttered to Keith. Rebecca was only four, what if something scary happened in the book that she didn’t understand.

“I bought two copies, I queued up long enough” whispered Keith passing him a second copy of The Order of the Phoenix out of Rachael’s handbag.

“You’re amazing!” chuckled Joseph.

Rebecca was so emersed in her book that she didn’t realise the other children playing and screaming all around as she read.

After the party, the triplets had their bath, and they all washed their hair. Hilde was always in charge of bath time and after the bath’s Joseph and Persephone helped her put the triplets to bed.

Each child got a chapter of a book each, Ruben and Isaac usually chose the same book so they actually got two chapters. 

Rebecca was sitting on her bed in her pink pyjamas chatting away to her new dolls, reading to them from her book and talking to them about it. Her light blonde hair was soaking wet and dripping down her back.

“I’m glad that Harry didn’t get thrown out of school aren’t you Ginny?”

Persephone didn’t hear a response, but Ginny must have given one.

“Yes I know you fancy him Ginny,” laughed Rebecca.

“Shall we have a look at this hair before we start on the book?” asked Persephone.

“Can I have hair like my dolly’s?”

“Which one?” asked Persephone.

“The blonde one,” said Rebecca.

“Oh you want your hair plaited,” said Persephone in realisation, “well of course darling.”

Rebecca sat in front of Persephone as she gently brushed through Rebecca’s hair and carefully plaited it. Rebecca liked her hair being brushed like this, it was somewhat therapeutic.

“You found a name for your last dolly yet?” she asked.

“Not yet no,” sighed Rebecca.

Persephone tied of the plait and Rebecca passed her the book.

“Chapter ten right?”

“Yes!” beamed Rebecca hugging her three dolls close.

“Chapter Ten, Luna Lovegood.”

“That’s a pretty name!” said Rebecca.

“It is, isn’t it?” asked Persephone, “shall we see who she is?”

Persephone read Rebecca her chapter from the book and then put the book away to tuck Rebecca in to bed.

“Can I sleep with my dollies?” asked Rebecca hopefully.

“Of course sweetheart,” said Persephone tucking in the three dolls as well so everyone was comfy.

“Mummy, I’ve found a name for my dolly.”

“Really darling?”

“Her names Luna!” beamed Rebecca.

“That’s perfect sweetheart,” said Persephone kissing Rebecca on the forehead.

“Did you have a nice day Becky Bubala?” asked Joseph sitting down on the bed.

“Yes,” said Rebecca yawning.

“Bedtime,” said Persephone firmly turning off the light and turning on her nightlight.

“Goodnight Bubala,” said Joseph kissing Rebecca on the forehead.

“Goodnight Mummy, Godnight Daddy, Goodnight Hermione, Goodnight Ginny, Goodnight Luna.”


	13. Rainy Day

The Cohen’s were standing out in the rain getting soaking wet. Keith was going to drive Hilde the au pair to the train station, Hilde was going back to Germany for a fortnight to spend some time with her family before school started up again in a month.

“I want you to behave yourselves alright?” asked Hilde kneeling down to the same height as Ruben and Isaac.

“Ok,” shrugged Ruben before going to go jump in a steadily growing puddle.

“Bye-bye Hilde!” said Isaac giving her a huge hug before going to go and join Ruben.

“Bye princess,” said Hilde smiling gently at Rebecca.

Rebecca clutched onto Hilde in a tight hug and didn’t seem to want to let go.

Hilde laughed shaking her head as she tried to get out of Rebecca’s tight hug.

“I have to go, home sweetheart,” said Hilde.

“Don’t go!” screamed Rebecca, “don’t go!”

Rebecca loved Hilde, and she didn’t want her to leave like the last au pair had done. Katya the last au pair had left six months ago, and Rebecca hadn’t seen her since.

“I’m only going for two weeks,” said Hilde gently, “I need to see my own Mummy and Daddy, I’ll be back.”

“You promise?” asked Rebecca calming down and loosening her tight grip slightly.

“I promise,” nodded Hilde.

Rebecca gave Hilde one last hug before letting go of her.

Hilde got in the car before Rebecca got upset again and Joseph came over to Rebecca and lifted her up.

“Come on Bubala,” he said bouncing her on his hip and drying her tears.

“Hilde will be back before you know it, you going to wave goodbye like a big girl for me?”

Rebecca and Joseph waved Hilde goodbye, as Keith drove her to the station.

Isaac and Ruben were still playing in the puddles, splashing water at each other and seeing who could make the biggest splash jumping in the great big puddles. Persephone was keeping an eye on them, making sure that they didn’t get run over.

“Alright boys,” said Persephone taking one of Ruben’s and Isaac’s hands each.

“We’ve had enough playing in puddles for today, it’s time to come inside.”

“But we want to play!” protested Ruben.

“You can play inside,” said Persephone still trying to pull them into the house.

“You’ll get sick if you stay outside, and you’ll get bad colds. You won’t be able to play at all if you’re stuck in bed with sniffly noses.”

“Playing inside’s, no fun,” sulked Isaac as they took off their raincoats and wellie boots.

“Who said that playing inside was no fun?” asked Joseph surprised as he hung up Rebecca’s little raincoat.

“Playing inside is boring,” agreed Ruben.

“Only if you don’t make it fun,” beamed Joseph.

“Oh God,” muttered Persephone dreading what kind of idea had got into her husband’s head now.

“The first thing we’ve got to do,” said Joseph, “is tidy up the sitting room, and move everything out of the way so we’ve got lots of space.”

Persephone looked confused but didn’t say anything, because to her surprise Ruben and Isaac were tidying up all their toys from the sitting room floor and carrying them upstairs.

“Come on Becky,” said Joseph taking her hand, “let’s take Luna upstairs.”

“Why?” asked Rebecca taking Luna in her free hand.

“Because if she stays down here, she might get hurt,” explained Joseph gently.

“Ok,” said Rebecca skipping up the stairs with Luna as the boys came charging back down the stairs.

“Right,” said Joseph, “now I need everybody’s help to move the sofas to the side of the room.”

Ruben and Isaac helped Joseph and Persephone push the sofa’s and the armchair against the wall so there was a big empty space in the middle of the sitting room.

“What are you planning Joseph?” whispered Persephone.

“Wait and see Sephie,” chuckled Joseph, “wait and see.”

“Before we do anything,” said Joseph as Rebecca came back, “there’s one rule, stay away from the television!”

Joseph and Persephone laid out a row of cushions around the television, so the children knew not to go there.

“What are we going to do Daddy?” asked Rebecca confused.

“You’ll have to guess,” smirked Joseph.

“Are we going to play sleeping lions?” asked Rebecca excitedly.

“No Bubala, we’re not,” chuckled Joseph.

“Hide and seek?” asked Isaac.

“Why would we play hide and seek when we’ve just moved everything?” scoffed Ruben.

“I think we’re going to play aliens, Daddy’s had us move everything, so we have space to run around.”

“You’re getting closer Rubes,” beamed Joseph, “we have moved the furniture, so you’ve got time to run.”

“Oh come on Joe,” laughed Persephone, “just tell us already the suspense is killing us!”

“What’s Daddy’s favourite game?” asked Joseph.

“Tickle Wars!” yelled Ruben and Isaac as they started attacking Joseph tickling him.

“No,” laughed Joseph.

“Rugby,” said Persephone.

“Full marks to Mummy,” said Joseph, “today, I’m going to teach you three how to play rugby.”

“Yay!” yelled Ruben and Isaac jumping up and down excitedly.

Rebecca put her hand in the air.

“Can girls play rugby Daddy?”

“Of course girls can play rugby,” chuckled Joseph as he got out the rugby ball.

They all stood around in a circle and practised passing the ball back and forth until they got the hang of the ball.

“Ok,” said Isaac.

“Now remember, you have to pass the ball backwards.”

“Who’s on which team?” asked Rebecca.

“Well Daddy’s in charge on one team,” said Persephone, “and I’m on the other.”

“I want to be with Isaac,” said Ruben giving his brother and best friend a huge hug.

“Alright,” smirked Joseph, “then I get Becky, and my team gets to start!”

“You’ve got a deal, Dr Cohen,” said Persephone shaking his hand.

“And you’re going down Dr Cohen,” said Joseph nodding at her.

“You ready Becky?” asked Joseph as they lined up on the opposite side of the sitting room from Persephone and the boys.

“Yes Daddy,” nodded Rebecca. Joseph might have one less person on his team but they had a plan.

“Ready ready up!” yelled Joseph.

“Up!” shouted Ruben charging at Joseph.

Joseph passed the rugby ball to Rebecca, and then picked her up and ran whilst still holding Rebecca and the rugby ball.

Isaac and Ruben clung onto each of Joseph’s legs each, but Joseph still struggled to the try line and then put Rebecca down on the floor, where she put the rugby ball on the floor.

“And the first try of the day is scored by Rebecca Sara Rachael Cohen!” yelled Joseph triumphantly.

“Cheats!” yelled Persephone hitting Joseph with a pillow.

“We didn’t cheat!” protested Joseph.

“I’ll allow that one,” said Persephone eyeing his warily, “but I’m watching you!”

There was a lot of tackling and falling over, but the sitting room was a good place for the triplets to learn as if the children fell over, they had a soft landing and didn’t get hurt too badly.

Two hours later, the whole family were lying on the floor laughing. Everyone had ganged up on Joseph, to try and tackle him. Persephone and Rebecca had been clinging onto one leg and Ruben and Isaac the other. They had finally managed to tackle Joseph who had fallen over onto the floor bringing everyone else down with him.

“I’m shattered,” laughed Joseph hugging Persephone and Rebecca.

“Me too,” laughed Persephone.

“Why don’t we put the furniture back to normal, and then we can watch some films?” suggested Joseph.

“The Lion King!” yelled Ruben.

“Toy Story!” shouted Isaac.

“We can watch both,” chuckled Joseph

“Can Hermione, Ginny and Luna come?” asked Rebecca sitting up.

“Of course they can sweetheart!” chuckled Persephone.

Rebecca ran upstairs to go and get her dolls, whilst Isaac went to go and find his Woody and Buzz Lightyear action figures.

Whilst the children were getting their toys, Persephone and Joseph put the furniture back to normal, and then Joseph put the first film on.

They all curled up on the sofa and watched Disney films on videotape and had a wonderful time.

When it came time to put the triplets to bed that night, they fell asleep much faster than usual. Ruben was out like a light before Joseph had even read half a chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

“Maybe we should play rugby more often,” whispered Persephone as they turned off the light, “Ruben seems to have finally run out of energy!”


	14. Starting School

Joseph’s alarm clock went off and he tried to ignore it.

“Shut up!” he grumbled turning the alarm clock off.

“Joseph,” muttered Persephone.

“What?” he mumbled from deep beneath his duvet.

“We’ve got to get up,” sighed Persephone, “it’s the first of September.”

“Term doesn’t restart until the 29th,” he said pulling her in close for a hug.

“University term maybe,” yawned Persephone.

“I’ll take Becky,” sighed Joseph, “you take the boys.”

Persephone and Joseph both leapt out of bed and got dressed as quickly as they could before going to go and rouse the children.

Joseph went through to Rebecca’s room, and almost didn’t want to wake her. She looked so sweet when she was sleeping, she looked like a little angel with her long blonde hair spread out on the pillow.

He opened the curtains, and Rebecca started to blink tiredly at him.

“Good morning Bubala,” said Joseph sitting down on the bed next to her.

“Morning Daddy,” yawned Rebecca.

“Do you know what today is?” asked Joseph.

“Yes,” muttered Rebecca not looking to happy about it.

“Do I have to go to school Daddy?” she pleaded.

“Can’t I just stay home with you and Mummy?”

“You know you need to go to school Bubala,” said Joseph shaking his head, “Isaac and Ruben are going.”

“You and Mummy are staying at home,” she said her eyes welling up.

“That’s only until we go back to work poppet,” Joseph said drying her eyes.

“You never know, you might like it,” said Joseph, “you like reading. School might be fun.”

“I don’t know anyone,” she muttered.

“Yes, you do, you know Ruben and Isaac.”

Rebecca still looked entirely unconvinced.

“It’s only school, it’s not the end of the world, and tonight we can all come home, and you can tell me about all the wonderful things you’ve learnt.”

“Ok,” said Rebecca getting out of bed.

“I love you Daddy!” she beamed kneeling on top of the bed.

“I love you too Becky,” he chuckled, “now let’s make you look beautiful for school.”

Joseph helped Rebecca into her new uniform and brush her teeth and then got out her hairbrush.

“What would you like today?” asked Joseph brushing out her long light blonde hair.

“I want my hair like Luna’s,” she beamed swinging her legs back and forth.

“I’ll give it a go,” chuckled Joseph who’d been practising his plaits recently, which was Rebecca’s new favourite hairstyle.

He tied her hair into a low ponytail, and then plaited it carefully before adding another hair tie on the bottom.

“And just for luck,” said Joseph tying on small piece of blue ribbon at the end of her plait, “to match your new uniform.”

“Perfect,” he beamed, “now come on Becky Bubala, let’s go find you some breakfast.”

Joseph took Rebecca’s hand, and they passed the boys room across the corridor where Persephone was still trying to get a jumper over a squirming Ruben’s head who was so excited for school that he couldn’t stand still for very long.

“Can I take Hermione with me to school?” asked Rebecca.

“Becky is that the sort of thing a big girl would do?” asked Joseph as he put on the toast.

“Hermione is wearing a school uniform,” Rebecca pointed at.

“Dolly’s like Hermione don’t go to school; they don’t need to learn how to read.”

“Why?” asked Rebecca.

“Because you read to your dolly’s don’t you sweetheart?”

“Oh,” said Rebecca nodding, “right.”

Joseph made ten pieces of toast, enough for two pieces each. He cut the crusts off Rebecca’s toast which she always had with marmite and then cut it into four triangles. By the time the boys got downstairs, their plates of toast with marmalade were already waiting for them.

Ruben was so excited that he couldn’t sit still long enough to eat, and Isaac was jabbering away two to a dozen, Rebecca on the other hand was eating her breakfast.

“Isaac, stop talking, Ruben, sit still,” sighed Persephone, “why don’t you both eat your toast like Becky.”

“Good girl,” beamed Joseph kissing her on the forehead which made Rebecca giggle as she ate.

Once Joseph had eaten his toast, Persephone supervised the rest of the breakfasts whilst Joseph made the packed lunches.

“Right what does everyone want in their sandwiches?” asked Joseph.

“Cheese please!” called Isaac.

“Can I have strawberry jam please Daddy?” asked Rebecca.

“Of course you can darling, and thank you for asking so nicely.”

“What do you want Rubes?” asked Joseph.

“Can I have a ham sandwich?” asked Ruben.

“No Ruben you can’t,” said Joseph shaking his head, “you can’t eat pork.”

“But Harry has ham sandwiches!” protested Ruben.

“Harry’s not Jewish darling,” said Persephone.

“I can do you a tuna mayonnaise?” suggested Joseph.

“Alright,” shrugged Ruben finishing his toast.

Joseph cut the sandwiches into quarters and put them in the lunch boxes. In each lunch box also went an apple, and a packet of ready salted crisps. The new lunch boxes and water bottles matched the backpacks, Isaac’s were blue, Ruben’s were red, and Rebecca’s were pink.

“Don’t forget,” said Joseph as he packed the three backpacks, “if you want to refill your water bottles, all you need to do is ask your new teacher, alright?”

“Yes Daddy,” nodded Isaac and Ruben.

“Becky?”

“I’m sorry Daddy?” asked Rebecca who had been thinking about her book.

“If you want to refill your water bottle, what do you do?”

“Ask my new teacher,” said Rebecca.

“There’s a clever girl,” beamed Joseph.

“Shoes and coats please,” said Persephone clearing up the breakfast plates.

Joseph and Persephone helped Rebecca, Isaac and Ruben into their little coats, and they put on their brand new school shoes which shone like bright new pennies. Then they all put on their backpacks and headed out of the house.

“Now then rule number one of walking to school,” said Persephone, “make sure you’re holding either Mummy or Daddy’s had at all times.”

“Yes Mummy,” said Rebecca taking Persephone’s hand.

Isaac took Joseph’s hand, and Ruben took Joseph’s overhand somewhat reluctantly.

It was a fifteen-minute walk to the primary school, but it was only a few minutes’ walk to the university from the school. That meant if there were any problems whilst the triplets were at school, they could ring the university and Joseph and Persephone could be at the school within a few minutes.

Oxford was a fairly large city, but it had a lot of primary schools, so the school that Ruben, Rebecca and Isaac were going to going to wasn’t too big. There was going to be about twenty students including them in their class, but there were nearly three hundred children running around the playground.

Ruben was squirming trying to run away from Joseph so he could play football with some older boys. Isaac’s face had lit up at how many children there were, he wondered who would be in his class, and which ones he would be friends with.

Rebecca though was holding onto her Mummy’s hand even tighter and was considering hiding behind her Daddy again. Even the biggest children were still a lot smaller than her Daddy, if she hid behind him maybe she could slip back home with Mummy and Daddy instead of going to school.

“It’s alright little one,” chuckled Joseph as Rebecca tried hiding behind him, “you won’t be in class with all of them.”

“Shall we go find your teacher?” suggested Persephone.

“Ok,” mumbled Rebecca.

The Cohen’s went inside and found the right classroom. There was a sign on the door saying RS. 

“Miss Smith’s Reception classroom,” nodded Joseph before knocking on the door.

The bell didn’t ring for ten minutes, so Miss Smith was still setting up the classroom for when the new students arrived.

“Come in!” called Miss Smith.

Miss Smith had her soft brown hair in a loose bun, and was wearing a pair of jeans with a colourful jumper.

“Have you got some new students for me?” asked Miss Smith smiling kindly.

“Yes,” laughed Joseph, “I’m Dr Joseph Cohen.”

“Dr. Persephone Cohen,” said Persephone shaking Miss Smith’s hand.

“Lecturers or medical?”

“Lecturers at Corpus Christi,” chuckled Joseph.

“And you three must be my new triplets!” exclaimed Miss Smith looking at the triplets.

“Well, this one’s Ruben,” said Persephone ruffling his hair, “he’s the one with the red backpack and pencil case, the other one is Isaac, he has a blue backpack and pencil case.”

“And this one is Rebecca,” beamed Joseph as he tried to coax Rebecca out from behind his legs.

“She’s a bit shy,” said Persephone.

“That’s alright sweetheart,” said Miss Smith, “everyone’s a bit nervous on their first day.”

“is there anything in particular I need to know?” asked Miss Smith.

“Ruben’s always got ants in his pants,” said Joseph, “but once you’ve got him sat down he’s quite well behaved.”

“And our Becky’s been diagnosed with autism,” finished Persephone.

“Oh!” said Miss Smith slightly surprised, “I thought only boys had that.”

“No,” said Joseph shaking his head, “it’s just more obvious usually with boys.”

“Right,” nodded Miss Smith, “well thank you for letting me know. Don’t worry they’re all in safe hands.”

“Be a good girl Bubala,” said Joseph crouching down as he gave Rebecca a bear hug.

“You’re going to be alright?”

“Yes Daddy!” nodded Rebecca.

“We’ll come pick you all up at half past three alright?” said Persephone.

“Bye Mummy! Bye Daddy!” called Rebecca, Ruben and Isaac.

Joseph waved at them one more time before they headed home. It was the longest day ever, they tried everything to distract them from the children. Working on next years syllabuses, watching Michael Palin, even going for a walk in the park, but nothing seemed to work. All Joseph could do was worry about his triplets, especially little Becky. What if one them had gotten hurt? What if Becky had a meltdown? What if one of them got picked on?

Eventually three thirty came, and Joseph and Persephone were standing at the gate with all the other parents waiting for their children. As the children came rushing out of the school, Ruben came racing over to them followed by Isaac who was clinging onto Rebecca’s hand.

“Daddy!” screamed Ruben sprinting over to him.

“Hey Rubes!” said Joseph picking Ruben up and lifting him in the air.

“Did you have fun today?”

“I played on the jungle gym,” exclaimed Ruben, “I made it all the way across the monkey bars!”

“Did you now?” asked Persephone impressed.

“Mummy!” said Isaac hugging her around the legs, “Daddy!”

“Daddy!” exclaimed Rebecca giving Joseph the biggest hug ever.

“Hello darling,” said Joseph putting Ruben back down and picking up Rebecca.

Rebecca snuggled up to her Daddy and nuzzled up next to him.

“How was school?”

Rebecca shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“You want to go home Bubala?” asked Joseph brushing a loose lock of her hair of her face.

“Yes please,” she mumbled.

Persephone took one of the boy’s hands each and they walked home Joseph carrying Rebecca.

“What happened today then?” asked Persephone.

“Firstly, Miss Smith gave us all our desks,” said Isaac, “I asked if I could sit with Becky so I can look after her and be her desk mate. Miss Smith said yes.”

“That was very nice of you Isaac,” said Persephone, “well done for looking after Becky.”

“Who’s your desk mate Rubes?” asked Joseph.

“A little boy he’s called Mike,” said Ruben, “he’s so cool, he’s Dad an aeroplane pilot for the RAF!”

“That is pretty cool,” admitted Persephone, “but I think your Daddy’s cooler.”

“Me too!” exclaimed Ruben.

“Do you lot got any homework?” asked Joseph.

“We have to read to you for five minutes,” said Isaac.

“Wow! That’s exciting,” said Persephone, “what books have you got?”

“Biff and Chip!” beamed Ruben.

“Oh, we know Biff and Chip,” chuckled Persephone remembering them from when she had taught Isaac and Rebecca how to read last year.

“What have you got Isaac?” 

“George’s Marvellous Medicine,” said Isaac, “Miss Smith tested me and Becky’s reading this morning.”

“What have you gout Becky Bubala?” asked Joseph.

“The Magicians Nephew,” said Rebecca still clinging onto him close as he held her.

“Miss Smith asked me what books I liked, and I told her I liked Harry Potter, so she thought I might like it.”

“I read that when I was your age,” said Joseph reminiscently, “it’s a very good book.”

“Sounds like you all had a fun day!” said Persephone.

“But why are you so quiet sweetheart?” asked Joseph.

“Did you not have a nice day?”

“The other kids thought Becky was weird,” said Ruben turning up his nose slightly.

“Don’t say that Ruben,” said Persephone in a harsher tone than she had meant to use.

“So Rubes is right,” said Isaac, “they didn’t understand why she wanted to read her new book instead of playing at break time with everyone else. A couple of girls asked her to play tag at morning break, but Becky ignored them as she was reading.”

“We know Becky’s not weird,” said Ruben.

“And we tried telling them that,” agreed Isaac, “but they think she’s weird because she won’t join in in the games in class.”

“It’s alright boys,” sighed Persephone, “it’s not your fault.”

When the family got home, Rebecca was quiet for most of the evening and didn’t talk to anyone. When Joseph came to tuck her into bed and read her her story, Rebecca was crying and hugging two of her dolls.

“Don’t cry Bubala,” said Joseph gently sitting down next to her on top of the bed, “you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I don’t like school!” sobbed Rebecca.

Joseph pulled Rebecca in for a hug and stroked her hair out.

“You like Miss Smith your teacher?”

“Yes,” nodded Rebecca, “she’s nice.”

“And you’ve got Ruben and Isaac,” said Joseph, “you’ll make more friends later.”

“I hope so,” mumbled Rebecca snuggling up to him drowsily.

“Don’t worry darling you will,” said Joseph. But as he said that, he wasn’t so sure that what he had just said was true.


	15. Ballet Shoes

The triplets had been at school for three months now, and they were settling in quite well. Ruben and Isaac had friends round at least once a week, and the teachers thought that Rebecca was extremally creative as well as being adorable.

Joseph and Persephone would walk or drive the triplets to school depending on how much time they had before starting work, and then Hilde the au pair would pick them up at half-past three and take them home.

Hilde would help Rebecca, Ruben, and Isaac with their reading or their spelling so they did their homework, and then the children would play whilst she made tea. Tea was served at six o’clock exactly every single night, Persephone and Joseph finished work at five, but sometimes they got held back by students or lecturers wanting to talk to them, but they were always home in time for six o’clock.

The nights were starting to get longer and darker now, as it was mid-November, and Isaac and Ruben were playing a game on their PlayStation in the sitting room, and Rebecca was changing her dolls.

“What you doing Becky?” asked Isaac as he waited for the next level to load.

“They need warmer clothes,” explained Rebecca as she took off Ginny’s party dress and dressed her in pair of warm tights and a green jumper with a matching skirt, “it’s winter.”

“They’re dolls,” scoffed Ruben, “they don’t feel the cold.”

“Oh yes they do!” protested Rebecca glaring at her brother.

“Who told you that?” asked Isaac curiously.

“Luna told me,” said Rebecca nodding her head.

“Don’t be stupid,” laughed Ruben, “they’re dolls, they can’t talk!”

Rebecca scooped up her half changed dolls and ran out of the room bursting into tears leaving a pile of dolls clothes in the middle of the room.

“Should we go say sorry?” suggested Isaac.

Ruben pointed out that the next level had loaded on the video game, and they forget about their little sister for a while whilst they played.

Rebecca cried in her room for a while but then decided that as her brothers were being silly, she would play with the people who did actually understand her, Luna, Hermione and Ginny.

She finished changing the dolls into their warm winter jumpers tights and skirts and then sat them down comfortably on the bed.

“We’re going to go ballet class,” said Rebecca talking to her dolls.

She had heard the other girls in her class talk about going to ballet class and had seen them practising sometimes at break time. Even though she wanted to ask them if she could join in, she could never bring herself to.

She was soon spinning and dancing around the room humming to herself even picking up one of the dolls from the bed and waltzing around with Ginny.

“Hi De Hi Gang!” called Joseph as they got home at twenty to six.

“Ho De Ho!” called Isaac and Ruben from the sitting room not putting down their game.

“Where’s Becky?” asked Persephone sitting down with the boys and dumping her bag of marking she had to get through that evening once the children were in bed down on the sofa.

“I dunno,” shrugged Ruben.

“I don’t know,” emphasised Persephone.

“Neither do I,” said Ruben.

Joseph went to go and look for Rebecca and found her dancing around the room with Ginny in her arms.

“Hey there little one,” chuckled Joseph coming into the room.

“Daddy!” exclaimed Rebecca “come dance with me!”

“Come here Bubala,” said Joseph picking her up and standing Joseph on top of his shoes.

He danced around the room occasionally spinning her around and making her giggle.

“Dinner!” called Hilde up the stairs.

“Come on princess,” said Joseph picking Rebecca up and carrying her downstairs.

“What have you two been up to?” asked Hilde as they sat down.

“Daddy’s been teaching me how to dance!” laughed Rebecca.

“Was it fun?” asked Persephone as she cut up Rebecca’s fish fingers.

“Be careful darling they’re hot,” said Persephone as Rebecca started her fish fingers.

“Much more fun than ballet lessons,” beamed Rebecca between mouthfuls.

“Do you want to take ballet lessons Bubala?” asked Joseph.

“Ballet’s boring,” grumbled Ruben, “I want to start rugby!”

“We’ve been through this Rubes,” said Joseph, “you can’t sign up for rugby juniors until you’re six. You have to wait another two years.”

Ruben looked thoroughly mutinous.

“We can keep playing sitting room rugby on rainy days though,” said Persephone trying to cheer him.

Ruben always cheered up at even the thought of sitting room rugby.

“I did ballet classes when I was you age Becky,” said Persephone, “we should have signed you up ages ago.”

“I also did ballet,” said Hilde reminiscently, “I played Clara in the Nutcracker when I was thirteen.”

“Do you want to do ballet Becky?” asked Persephone.

“Oh yes please!” exclaimed Rebecca.

And so on Sunday morning, Rebecca was going to her first-ever ballet lesson. Persephone had bought her a pair of ballet shoes and a baby pink leotard. She had even bought three tiny pairs of tights and leotards for Rebecca’s dolls, so they could help her practise when she was at home.

“Sit still darling,” muttered Persephone with a hairpin between her teeth.

“You’re hurting me!” cried Rebecca rubbing her scalp from where the hairpins were digging in.

“Just one last pin,” said Persephone finishing Rebecca’s perfect bun. 

Rebecca had so much hair, that they had been sat there the last fifteen minutes trying to get it all pinned up neatly.

Then Persephone drove her to the ballet studio and waited outside with the other parents, but Rebecca seemed somehow nervous.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she mumbled hiding behind her Mummy’s legs. This was a lot less effective than hiding behind Daddy’s legs, but it still worked.

“We can go home if you want,” said Persephone crouching down to Rebecca’s level, “try again next week.”

Rebecca bit her lip and didn’t seem to know what decision to make.

“Tell you what darling,” she said gently, “if you go in there with the other girls. If you get scared and want to go home at any point, I’m just in the corridor, alright?”

“Yes Mummy!” said Rebecca giving Persephone a quick hug before going to go and join the other girls in the dance class. 

There were about a dozen girls there, all the same age as Rebecca and they were all dressed the same in light pink leotards. Rebecca recognised at least a few of the girls that she went to school with, but she didn’t know them very well.

A little girl with a slightly untidy bun with hairpins sticking out of her strawberry blonde hair came walking over to Rebecca.

“Hello,” said the other girl waving, “I’m Amy, you’re Becky. You’re Isaac and Ruben’s sister.”

“Yes,” said Rebecca nodding and looking down at her shoes.

“I’m in your class,” beamed Amy, “are you new?”

Rebecca continued to look down at her shoes and nodded.

“You scared?” asked Amy.

“Just a bit,” mumbled Rebecca.

“Don’t you have any friends here?” asked Amy surprised.

“No,” said Rebecca.

“Well you do now,” giggled Amy taking Rebecca’s hand and pulling her over to join the other girls.

Rebecca was somewhat shocked that Amy was pulling her over to the other girls, but she didn’t mind.

The class started up by warming up, by skipping around the classroom to the piano. Amy was still holding Rebecca’s hand, and Rebecca soon forgot how nervous and shy she was.

“Alright girls,” said the ballet teacher, “can everyone sit nicely on the floor please?”

All the girls sat down cross-legged on the floor and listened to their instructress. 

“Good morning girls,” she beamed.

“Good morning Miss Baker,” chanted the girls.

“Today we have a new student,” said Miss Baker, “her name is Rebecca Cohen, can everyone please say hello to Becky?”

“Hello, Becky!” chorused the girls, some of them waving at her.

“Does one of you want to be Becky’s special friend for her first few weeks?”

Amy put her hand in the air.

“Yes, Amy?”

“I’m in Becky’s class at school, and I’m going to look after her at school as well.”

“That’s very nice of you Amy,” said Miss Baker, “I think that deserves a gold star.”

“We’re going to start working on the Christmas show today, which is in five weeks. You’re my youngest class, so you’re not going to be doing much. This year we are putting on the Nutcracker, and you lot are all going to be baby snowflakes.”

“Even me?” asked Rebecca putting her hand in the air.

“Yes sweetheart even you,” laughed Miss Baker.

The girls all danced around on their tiptoes following Miss Baker and occasionally turning around with their arms in the air. It wasn’t very good ballet as they were only four, but they looked very cute!

At the end of the class, all the little girls went out to find their parents who had been waiting in the hallway.

Amy was still clinging onto Rebecca’s hand as both ran into the corridor.

“Hello Mummy!” said Amy giving her Mummy a huge hug.

“Hello, darling, who’s your new friend?” 

Rebecca was still standing next to Amy and holding her hand, as Amy hugged her Mummy.

“This is Becky!” beamed Amy, “she’s in Miss Smith’s class with me.”

“Well, it sounds like I and Becky’s Mummy are going to have to exchange contact numbers.”

“Mrs Yates,” laughed Mrs Yates as Persephone came over.

“Dr Cohen,” said Persephone, “but my friends call me Sephie.”

Mrs Yates and Persephone swapped home phone numbers, whilst the two girls chatted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Becky!” said Amy giving Rebecca a huge hug and then waving goodbye.

“Bye-bye Amy!” called Rebecca as Amy went away.

“So did you enjoy your first ballet lesson?” asked Persephone as they drove home.

“Yes, I’ve got a new friend called Amy, and I’m going to be a baby snowflake in the Christmas show.”

Persephone didn’t know which one to be more proud about, Rebecca having a friend, or being in the dance show.


	16. A Very Special Show and Tell

It was the last day of term, and Miss Smith’s reception class had already been visited by Father Christmas who had given them all little bags of sweets, and they had watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas on the television.

They had even done the Christmas nativity play, Rebecca hadn’t wanted to be in it, but Ruben and Isaac had been in it. Isaac played the Star of David as he was Jewish and led the wise men to the stable. Ruben had had a great time shouting at people, as he had got to play King Herod.

“Before we all go home,” said Miss Smith, “we are going to have a very special show and tell. Ruben, Isaac, Rebecca, can you come up here please.”

Isaac took Rebecca’s hand and the three of them walked up to the front of the classroom, and Miss Smith passed them the box that Joseph had given her to look after that morning.

“Now I know everyone’s going to be celebrating Christmas, but you’re going to be celebrating something else aren’t you Isaac?”

“We’re going to be celebrating Hannukah!” beamed Isaac.

“What’s Hannukah?” asked Miss Smith.

“It’s the festival of lights!” exclaimed Ruben, “Christmas is only one day, but we celebrate for eight whole nights!”

“Really? That is a long time, how do you celebrate it.”

“We light the Hannukah menorah,” said Rebecca, “one candle for each night.”

“Is this the menorah?” asked Miss Smith taking the menorah out of the box and passing it to Rebecca.

“Yes,” nodded Rebecca holding the large menorah carefully.

“How does that work?”

“Granny lights one candle each night during Hannukah,” said Ruben, “and Granny, Grandpa and Daddy say the blessings over the candles.”

“Why are there nine candles instead of eight?” asked Miss Smith.

“The middle candle is the shamash” explained Isaac, “it’s the helper candle you use it to light the others.”

“Do you do anything else special for Hannukah?” asked Miss Smith.

“We play with the dreidel,” beamed Ruben.

“And Granny and Grandpa visit for the whole holiday,” said Rebecca who was looking forward to seeing her grandparents that evening.

“Do you eat anything special?”

“Lots of fried food,” said Isaac, “because of the oil.”

“Latkes or potato pancakes,” said Ruben his eyes lighting up, “doughnuts it’s great!”

“That sounds amazing,” chuckled Miss Smith, “when’s the first night of Hannukah then?”

“Tonight,” said Rebecca, “until next Friday night.”

“Does anyone have any questions?” asked Miss Smith.

“Do you get presents like at Christmas?” asked a boy from the back.

“We get one small present a night,” said Isaac.

“Usually little things like Hannukah gelt, or coins,” said Ruben, “that’s usually a bag of chocolate coins.”

“But on the last two nights,” explained Rebecca, “we get big presents.”

“Why don’t you celebrate Christmas?” asked a boy from the back.

“Because we’re Jewish, not Christian,” Isaac said.

“If you don’t celebrate Christmas, why were you in the Christmas show?” asked one of the girls from Rebecca’s ballet class.

“The Nutcracker, isn’t actually about Christmas,” said Rebecca, “and Daddy called it the Winter show not the Christmas show.”

“Any more questions?” asked Miss Smith.

Nobody else had any questions, and they were all allowed to go home for the Christmas holidays.

Amy pulled Rebecca into a huge hug and didn’t seem to want to let go. Amy was Rebecca’s best friend, and she didn’t want to go home for three weeks and not be able to see her.

“I don’t want you to go!” sobbed Amy.

“Don’t be silly Amy,” said Rebecca hugging Amy all the same, “you’re coming round to our house on Sunday afternoon to play!”

“Can you show me how to play with the dreidel thing?” asked Amy excitedly.

“Of course,” laughed Rebecca.

Amy gave Rebecca one last hug before skipping off home.

Hilde was waiting for Rebecca with Isaac and Ruben at the school gate, and Rebeca rushed over to take Hilde’s hand. Miss Smith had given the menorah to Hilde to carry home.

Rebecca loved Hilde very much, not as much as her Mummy but definitely as much as her Aunty Rachael. Hilde always remembered that Rebecca liked her different foods separated on her plate, so Hilde made sure that Rebecca’s fish fingers and baked beans never touched. If Mummy was busy, Hilde would wash Rebecca’s hair at bath time, and Hilde never got soap in her eyes.

“You three looking forward to Hannukah?” asked Hilde as they walked home.

Ruben was running ahead and playing tag with Isaac down the pavement. As long as they stopped when they got too far ahead, so they didn’t get to hurt, Hilde didn’t mind them playing. Rebecca was holding her hand and skipping along next to her, and Hilde was carrying the three backpacks.

“Yes!” beamed Rebecca, “Granny and Grandpa are coming for the whole week!”

“Your Granny has been cooking in the kitchen all afternoon,” said Hilde, “it smells wonderful. Are you going to help her when you get home?”

“Yes!” said Rebecca, “granny wants my help making the latkes, I need to grate the potatoes, and mould them into little balls.”

“That’s very important,” said Hilde nodding.

“Grandpa!” exclaimed Rebecca running up to her grandfather in the sitting room.

“Hello princess!” he chuckled pulling her onto his lap.

“You can’t be Baby Becky,” said Mr Cohen looking at her exaggeratedly, “Becky was only little, she wasn’t such a big girl. Becky didn’t do ballet.”

“I’m still Becky,” laughed Rebecca, “I’ve just got bigger.”

“Benny,” said Mrs Cohen coming through to the sitting room, “can you keep those boys out of the kitchen, they’re rushing around trying to find the chocolate coins and getting in the way. I’m going to get the oil out soon; they could get hurt.”

“Coming Sara,” chuckled Mr Cohen.

Mr Cohen picked up Ruben and Isaac one under each arm and carried them through to the sitting room.

“Why don’t you two show me how this PlayStation of yours works?”

“Come on Becky,” said Mrs Cohen taking Rebecca’s hand, “you’re a good girl, come and help Granny.”

Mrs Cohen tied a flowery apron around Rebecca’s school uniform and sat down Rebecca in front of a huge pile of potatoes, and a large glass bowl.

“Right my little Primrose, you grate all those potatoes, and when you’re done, we’ll mix them with the egg, and you can make them into little balls for me, and we dip them in the flour, and I’ll make the pancakes.”

“Ok Granny,” beamed Rebecca giving her Granny a quick kiss before getting started.

Rebecca had lots of fun slowly grating the potatoes, she had even more fun squashing all of the water out of the grated potatoes.

Then her granny helped her add the egg, and they made the potatoes into lots of tiny little balls of the mixture, which Rebecca then dipped into the flour so that her Mrs Cohen could fry them.

“They smell wonderful!” exclaimed Rebecca taking a deep sniff as Mrs Cohen fried them.

“They’ll taste even better Primrose,” said Mrs Cohen, “but keep away from the frying pan darling, or you’ll get hurt.”

“Ok Granny,” said Rebecca staying in her seat and tracing images in the leftover flour on the kitchen table.

“It’s nearly Sabbath Benny!” called Mrs Cohen, “I need you to get the boys ready!”

“Alright Sara,” called Mr Cohen turning off the video game and taking the boys upstairs to get ready.

Mrs Cohen went upstairs with Rebecca, where she had already laid out Rebecca’s party dress for her, which was a light blue.

Mrs Cohen helped Rebecca into her dress, and then left Rebecca upstairs whilst Mrs Cohen went to go and finish making the dinner.

Rebecca changed her three dolls out of their leotards, and into their own party dresses. Ginny’s dress was purple, Hermione’s dress was pink, and Luna’s dress was a light blue like her own.

“If you three are good, I might bring you some latkes after tea,” said Rebecca gently brushing Hermione’s hair.

“That’s if Daddy doesn’t eat them all,” she giggled, “they’re one of Daddy’s favourite things to eat.”

“Mummy says, if he eats too many, he’ll go pop! Like a huge balloon!”

“Yes, Hermione like Harry’s Aunt Marge.”

“Yes, I’m sure that would be funny Luna,” said Rebecca, “but I’d miss Daddy if he went pop!”

“Hi-De-Hi Gang!” Joseph called up the stairs as he got home.

“Daddy!” squealed Rebecca rushing down the stairs two at a time bringing Luna with her.

“Hello princess!” chuckled Joseph picking up Rebecca.

“Don’t you look gorgeous, and so does Luna. You’re so pretty I thought you were Cinderella!”

“Don’t be silly Daddy,” giggled Rebecca as Joseph carried her through to the kitchen.

“You’ve got twenty minutes Joseph,” said Mrs Cohen is a tone that said no arguments.

“Alright I’m going, I’m going,” laughed Joseph putting Rebecca down and going to go and get changed for dinner.

At six o’clock, the family were all gathered around the table, and Mrs Cohen lit the first candle and said the blessings with help from Joseph and Mr Cohen, they then tucked into their dinner.

“Ah my favourite holiday,” laughed Joseph, “the Jewish festival of deep-fried foods and chocolate coins.”

“Joseph Zebulon Cohen!” scolded Mrs Cohen, “one more expression like that and you won’t be getting any latkes.”

Joseph smirked as Mrs Cohen passed him a plate piled high with latkes anyway. Joseph knew that his Mum trying to restrict his food was an empty threat. Mrs Cohen would let her family go underfed the day that hell froze over.

When dinner was finally over, the family were gathered around the warm fire in the sitting room, and Mr Cohen got out three small parcels which he handed to each of the triplets.

“Happy Hannukah kids,” beamed Mr Cohen as they opened their boxes and found a bag of chocolate coins each.

“Time to get the dreidel out,” chuckled Persephone as the triplets ripped open the bags of coins.

“Can’t I just eat them?” asked Rebecca.

“Don’t you want to play with the dreidel?” asked Mr Cohen, “you might get more coins.”

“But I might lose them all,” said Rebecca terrified.

“If you do, there’s still another seven nights Bubala,” said Joseph hugging Rebecca.

“Alright then,” shrugged Rebecca getting ready to play.

Playing with the dreidel meant spinning a four-sided dice, and gambling with their chocolate coins. One hour later, they had all run out of chocolate coins apart from Ruben who had a pile of chocolate coins next to him as large as a small mountain.

“Are you going to share those with your brother and sister Ruben?” asked Persephone.

“Nope,” smirked Ruben his eyes bigger than his stomach as he looked at all his chocolate.

“You’ll be sick,” warned Joseph.

“I don’t care,” said Ruben diving into the chocolate.

They were both right, of course, Ruben ate all the chocolates and he was sick, but Ruben didn’t care.


End file.
